HAVEL & PARTNERS has joined the unique international project Distribution Law Center led by the major Brussels law firm contrast. The aim is to create an international platform where relevant information and distribution relation rules for more than 26 jurisdictions, including news from the world of competition and contract law and analyses of important cases, will be fully available in one place. The Web Distribution Law Center is expected to start on 4 October 2021.
HAVEL & PARTNERS has experienced experts in the area of setting up and regulating distribution relations who have been dealing with this issue for a long time. Our involvement in the international Distribution Law Center project is therefore a logical outcome of our long-term focus on this area. HAVEL & PARTNERS was approached by the Belgian law firm contrast as the exclusive contributor for the Czech and Slovak Republics. Our firm is thus among the other major European law firms cooperating on the project.
“The project comes at the best possible time, as next year will see a major revision of the Block Exemption Regulation and the rules for assessing so-called vertical agreements. They will be liberalised in some places and tightened in others. The change will affect almost all distribution relations, which will need to be modified. It will be appropriate to modify most distribution agreements to ensure that their business potential is fulfilled within the limits of competition law,” said Robert Neruda, partner and competition law specialist at the firm.
Štěpán Štarha, partner of the firm, who deals with, among other things, contractual relations, added: “We are glad that our law firm has become part of an EU-wide network of experts with whose assistance we will be able to design and create multi-jurisdictional distribution systems that take into account even the most surprising aspects of foreign laws.” In addition to the two partners, senior associate Radek Riedl, associate Vladislav Bernard, and other HAVEL & PARTNERS experts in the Czech Republic and Slovakia are also involved in the project.
This international project is significant from both a competition law and a contractual perspective, and should be the gateway for any business that wants to distribute goods in the EU that wants to do so efficiently and in full compliance with competition rules.
