Parallel sales and the principle of brand exhaustion.

Can unauthorised distributors make parallel sales? When can one make use of the principle of brand exhaustion? The Amazon, Sisley and L'Oréal cases. As has already been explained (see The selective distribution. A brief overview: risks and advantages), selective selective distribution has the function of protecting the marketing of products that, in...

License Agreement and Antitrust Law: The Hello Kitty Case.

Can the manufacturer block the sales of its licensee? Is the licence agreement subject to antitrust law? Some answers from the Hello Kitty, Campari and Grundig case studies. For decades, the European legislator has had to resolve the potential conflict that exists between competition rules, which oppose any measure that could restrict the...

Selective online distribution: the Amazon.it case.

1. Selective distribution: the regulatory and jurisprudential context. Starting from the assumption that the aim of every manufacturer is to maximise its profit, there are cases in which this objective can only be achieved by limiting access to the official sales network to distributors and resellers who meet particular requirements, so as to protect the image of the manufacturer...

Parallel Sales in the EU. When and to what extent can a manufacturer control them?

When we speak of parallel sales, we are referring to imports that take place alongside those made by an 'official', i.e. territorially competent, importer: parallel traders enter the market reserved for exclusive distributors, without having direct access to the supplier, who only supplies authorised dealers. Parallel trade,...