Following the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decision Carglass® Germany/Belron® ATU against FCA (Stellantis) on 5 October 2023, the case was referred back to the Regional Court of Cologne for its decision.
This Court has now ruled in favour of Carglass® Germany/Belron and ATU securing access to technical information and competition in the #automotive #aftermarket.
It emphasizes that OEMS :
• have to let independent operators not only access, but also process and use technical information;
• may not impose other conditions and restrictions (whether technical or financial) than the ones explicitly mentioned in Type-Approval Regulation 2018/858.
By doing so, the court removes anti-competitive barriers and secures the ability of repairers to continue accessing the information they need to perform #repair and #maintenance operations.
Such barriers are now unequivocally ruled as unlawful, in a judgment that will need to be respected by all market operators in the European Union.
CECRA is of the opinion that security concerns may not serve as an excuse to restrict or block competition where alternative, proportionate measures can be put in place to mitigate them.
Below is the link to the PR published by Belron: https://lnkd.in/eXmEBZCv
