Auto industry: Maintenance and repair market will remain protected

Publication date: 24 July 2009

Auto industry: Maintenance and repair market will remain protected

As of 1 June 2013, the relationship between car manufacturers and distributors should be governed by the general Community rules for vertical agreements between companies. This is what the European Commission proposed in a communication adopted on 22 July and submitted for consultation until 25 September.

Switching to the common system would only concern a priori the so-called primary market, ie for the sale of new vehicles.  For the after-sales market – repair and maintenance services and the spare parts market – the Commission is still thinking things over: either it will suggest a new block exemption regulation or it will opt  for specific guidelines.

The auto distribution sector is currently subject to a block exemption (Regulation 1400/2002), which will expire on 31 May 2010. The Commission is therefor making plans for what will follow. Regarding the sale of new vehicles, things seem clear: the Commission considers that the competition conditions have improved enough in recent years to be able to do away with specific exemption rules, even if it envisages that guidelines will regulate certain aspects of the market.
 

Regarding the after-sales market, however, the Commission thinks that safeguards are still necessary(competitive is less intense”). They will either be in the form of guidelines or a new block exemption regulation applicable after 31 May 2010. In particular, they will be to do with access to spare parts and access to authorised repairers’ networks, as well as new problems “which have become more prominent in recent years,” such as the misuse of warranties aimed at excluding independent repairers.

The market for vehicle maintenance and repair should therefore remain more regulated – and protected – than the ‘straightforward’ sale of new vehicles. This shows that the Commission has not ignored the independent repairers, who to this day complain of the difficulties in gaining access to manufacturers’ technical data and continue to demand measures guaranteeing free access to spare parts or the end of the fairly general requirement of maintaining vehicles exclusively within the authorised network during their guarantee period. But opening a new consultation shows that the Commission has mainly decided... on nothing official at this stage. It is true that the last assessment report of Regulation 1400/2002 is from May 2008, when the economic crisis had not yet fully hit the sector.

Source: Europolitics