The proposed insurance block exemption regulation

In the following paragraphs, Andrea Lista of the University of Southampton discusses the European Commission’s proposals for the approach to be taken in the renewal of the block exemption of insurance contracts from the competition rules in the EC Treaty.

Background

Since the dawn of the European Union, the Commission had claimed that the EC Competition law framework found full application to the insurance industry. In the ’80s, prima facie endorsing the position of the Commission, the European Court of Justice confirmed that the insurance sector should be subject to the EC antitrust rules for the first time in Verband der Sachversicherer [1987] ECR 405, 449-452. In spite of these declarations of principle, in Verband der Sachversicherer the Court also acknowledged the need for cooperation as one of the paramount features of the insurance industry. As a consequence, the Commission was tasked with the chore of carefully weighing up the special features of the insurance sector with a view to granting, where suitable, individual exemptions on the basis of art 81(3).