Brussels, 20/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission published the final report resulting from the study on car distribution carried out by Andersen Consultants. This study examines the economic impact of various regulatory scenarios on all the economic actors involved in the motor vehicle distribution market, including consumers. It represents an important contribution to the initiatives launched by the Commission to enable it to make a fully informed decision on the post-2002 regulatory regime concerning motor vehicle distribution in the EU.
The five legislative scenarios for motor vehicle distribution are as follows: (1) A system in which independent car distributors have the right to purchase new vehicles from manufacturers or their official distribution networks (the so-called "free for all" scenario); (2) An exclusive distribution system in which the manufacturer only agrees to sell new vehicles to a single distributor within a well-defined territory; (3) A selective distribution system based only on qualitative criteria, (4) A selective distribution system based on qualitative and quantitative criteria, with no territorial exclusivity; (5) A selective distribution system based on qualitative and quantitative criteria with limited territorial exclusivity in which active and passive sales in other territories are unrestrained. The specific issues that may influence each scenario are: the link between sales of new motor vehicles and after-sales services, multi-branding and after-sales services, access to technical information for independent repairers, distribution of original spare parts, dealer remuneration, allocation of vehicles (and particularly the "first come first served" principle), direct sales, role of intermediaries, and the availability clause.
The Commission will now analyse the factual finding of this study and elaborate draft proposals for the motor vehicle distribution regime to follow the one of Regulation 1475/95, which expires by the end of September 2002. The Commission should adopt these projects by the beginning of 2002. After the proposals have been submitted to the Member States for consultation, they will be published in the Official Journal in order to give all interested parties the possibility to comment on them. After written comments from all interested parties, and following a second consultation of Member States, the draft will be finalised and submitted to the Commission for adoption. The Commission should normally adopt any legislation necessary for the post-2002 regime before the 2002 summer break.