Ancillary Restraints in the Context of Merger Control

This work aims to bring certain clarifications regarding the concept of 'ancillary restraints' and to emphasize its implications at the level of day to day business practice in the context of the merger control procedure, done by the Romanian Competition Council or the European Commission, as each case imposes. It focuses on the most frequently met ancillary restraints (non-compete clauses, licensing agreements, purchase and supply agreements) at the level of the Council's/ Commission's practice, by means of case analysis. In the same time, on the basis of an inquiry done at the level of the Competition authorities' practice, it proposes to identify and present other types of agreements concluded by parties which enter in different transactions, which are considered ancillary restraints, in spite of the fact they are not provided by the relevant guidelines and regulations. Consequently, these can be regarded as useful guidelines for undertakings involved in concentrations, but especially for experts offering advice in this particular domain.The complexity of the problems which arise in this domain cannot be neglected, because if the parties wrongly regard as ancillary restraints some agreements concluded in the context of a transaction, they can be exposed to suffering negative consequences, even being susceptible of sanctions applied by the Romanian Competition Council or the European Commission on grounds of anti-competitive conduct