Translation of "Réparateur aux articles tuft " (French → English) :

Since the objectives of this Regulation, namely the realisation of the internal market through the introduction of common technical requirements concerning emissions from motor vehicles and guaranteed access to vehicle repair and maintenance information for independent operators on the same basis as for authorised dealers and repairers, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore be better achieved at Community level, the Community may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty.

Since the objectives of this Regulation, namely the realisation of the internal market through the introduction of common technical requirements concerning emissions from motor vehicles and guaranteed access to vehicle repair and maintenance information for independent operators on the same basis as for authorised dealers and repairers, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore be better achieved at Community level, the Community may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty.

(a) Vertical agreements entered into between an association of undertakings and its members, or between such an association and its suppliers, only if all its members are distributors of motor vehicles or spare parts for motor vehicles or repairers and if no individual member of the association, together with its connected undertakings, has a total annual turnover exceeding EUR 50 million; vertical agreements entered into by such associations shall be covered by this Regulation without prejudice to the application of Article 81 to horizontal agreements concluded between the members of the association or decisions adopted by the associat ...[+++]ion;

5. The exemption provided for in Article 2 shall apply on condition that the vertical agreement concluded with a distributor or repairer provides that if a supplier wishes to give notice of termination, the notice must include detailed reasons for the termination in order to prevent a supplier to end a vertical agreement with a distributor because of practices which may not be restricted under this regulation, in particular those practices, restriction of which results in the misapplication of the exemption either to the vertical agreement as a whole, in accordance with Artic ...[+++]le 4, or to the restriction in question, in accordance with Article 5.

(56) The hardcore restriction set out in Article 4(e) of the Block Exemption Regulation concerns agreements that prevent or restrict end-users, independent repairers and service providers from obtaining spare parts directly from the manufacturer of these spare parts.

Although neither the fact of obtaining protection for body parts (in the Renault case) nor the refusal to license exclusive rights against payment of a royalty (in the Volvo case) constitutes in itself an abuse of a dominant position, the Court affirmed in both judgments that the exercise of the exclusive rights in question in relation to body parts for cars may be prohibited by Article 86 if it leads to certain abusive behaviour on the part of the dominant company, citing as examples of such behaviour the arbitrary refusal to supply ...[+++]spare parts to independent repairers, the charging of unfair prices for spare parts, and the ceasing of production of parts for a model large numbers of which are still in circulation.