The Competition Act 1998 (Research and Development Agreements Block Exemption) Order 2022

Statutory Instruments

2022 No. 1271

Competition

The Competition Act 1998 (Research and Development Agreements Block Exemption) Order 2022

Made

at 1.21 p.m. on 5th December 2022

Laid before Parliament

at 4.00 p.m. on 5th December 2022

Coming into force

1st January 2023

The Competition and Markets Authority has recommended that the Secretary of State make an order specifying certain categories of agreements relating to research and development for the purposes of section 6 of the Competition Act 1998(1) (“the Act”).

In accordance with section 8 of the Act(2), before making the recommendation the Competition and Markets Authority published details of the proposed recommendation and considered the representations about it which were made to it(3).

The Secretary of State has decided to give effect to the recommendation without modifications.

The Secretary of State has also decided to vary two retained block exemption regulations under section 10A(1) of the Act(4). Before coming to that decision, the Secretary of State has—

(a) in accordance with section 10A(2) of the Act, had regard to the conditions specified in section 9(1) for exemption from the prohibition in Chapter 1 of Part 1 of the Act, and

(b) in accordance with section 10A(5) of the Act, informed the Competition and Markets Authority of the proposed variations and taken into account that Authority’s comments.

The Secretary of State therefore makes the following Order in exercise of the powers conferred by sections 6(2)(a), (5), (6) and (7), 10A(1) and 71(3) of the Act.

(1)

1998 c. 41. Section 6 was amended by paragraph 2 of Schedule 5 to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 (c. 24) to give the function of making recommendations to the Competition and Markets Authority. The Competition and Markets Authority was established by section 25 of that Act. This function was previously the responsibility of the Director General for Fair Trading and then the Office of Fair Trading. Other amendments to section 6 were made by paragraph 38 of Schedule 25 to the Enterprise Act 2002 (c. 40) and S.I. 2004/1261. “Research and development” is defined in article 2(1) of this Order.

(2)

Section 8 was amended by paragraph 38 of Schedule 25 to the Enterprise Act 2002 and paragraph 3 of Schedule 5 to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013.

(3)

The Competition and Markets Authority’s proposed recommendation and responses to its consultation can be found online at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/retained-horizontal-block-exemption-regulations-rd-and-specialisation-agreements-consultation or obtained by writing to Competition and Markets Authority, The Cabot, 25 Cabot Square, London E14 4QZ.

(4)

Section 10A was inserted by S.I. 2019/93. “Retained block exemption regulation” is defined in section 10(12) of the Competition Act 1998 (“the Act”), which was also inserted by S.I. 2019/93.