Press Release: Antitrust: public consultation on revised draft Block Exemption Regulation for insurance sector

The European Commission is inviting comments by 30 November 2009 on its revised draft Block Exemption Regulation (BER) for the insurance sector. The current insurance Block Exemption Regulation, which will expire on 31 March 2010, exempts certain agreements between insurance companies from the EC Treaty's ban on restrictive business practices (Article 81). Agreements currently covered by the Block Exemption Regulation include the establishment of non-binding standard policy conditions, the exchange of statistical information for the calculation of risks, the creation and operation of insurance pools as well as agreements on security devices. The revised draft Block Exemption Regulation proposes to renew two of the four categories of agreements currently exempted by the Block Exemption Regulation, namely information exchange and insurance pools, with certain amendments.