The European Commission announced on Friday 25 February that it is seeking comments on commitments offered by Insurance Ireland, an association of Irish insurers, to address competition concerns regarding access to its Insurance Link information exchange system.
On 14 May 2019, the European Commission opened a formal investigation into the conduct of Insurance Ireland. In June 2021, it issued a Statement of Objections setting out its preliminary view that Insurance Ireland had infringed EU competition rules by restricting competition in the Irish motor insurance market (see EUROPE 12744/4).
To address the European Commission’s concerns, Insurance Ireland has offered the following commitments: - to make access to the Insurance Link information exchange system independent of membership to Insurance Ireland; - to change the access criteria to Insurance Link to make them fair, objective, transparent and non-discriminatory and to apply them uniformly to all applicants, from Ireland and other Member States; - to establish a new Insurance Link application procedure with a defined timetable that will be handled by an independent Application Officer. Applicants who have been refused access will be able to appeal to the Oversight Committee, an independent appeal body; - to establish a cost and usage based fee model and to ensure that a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory fee will be charged to Insurance Link users; - to ensure that the criteria for membership of the Insurance Ireland association will be fair, objective, transparent and non-discriminatory. The proposed commitments would remain in force for 10 years.
The European Commission invites all interested parties to submit their views within one month of the publication of a summary of the commitments in the Official Journal of the EU. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)