EC Business Insurance Inquiry

It has taken 18 months and the interim report runs to over 150 pages and yet the European Commission has more work to do before it concludes the competition inquiry into business insurance. What the report does do, however, is provide strong indicators of its greatest concerns. In this article John Pheasant, a Partner at law firm Hogan & Hartson in London and Brussels, and Jean-Michel Coumes, an Associate at Hogan & Hartson in Brussels, provide an invaluable breakdown of the report and find that very few stones have been left unturned.

In April 2005, the European Commission launched an inquiry in the business insurance sector. The inquiry was sparked by the Commission’s concern that the European business insurance sector showed signs of distortions of competition. On 24 January 2007, the Commission published an interim report summarizing its preliminary findings. The report contains a description of the business insurance market structure and highlights the Commission’s main concerns over potential distortions of competition in the sector.