The Commission may grant an individual exemption to an agreement if it is notified, and has also provided block exemptions for certain categories of agreement. Article 82 prohibits the abuse of a dominant position insofar as it may affect trade between Member States. The Article contains a non-exclusive list of practices which might be considered as abuses, such as the imposition of unfair purchase or selling prices, or other unfair trading conditions. A European Merger Control Regulation provides for the Commission to control mergers which have a 'Community dimension'. This is defined as those mergers where the parties have an aggregate worldwide turnover exceeding 5 billion ECU and at least two of the parties have a Community turnover exceeding 250 million ECU, unless each of the parties achieves more than two-thirds of its turnover in one and the same Member State.
Special rules apply for banking, financial and insurance institutions.
A merger within this threshold must be pre-notified to the Commission. The Commission is directly responsible for the application of the European legislation. The Commission may act on the basis of agreements which have been notified to it, on complaints, or at its own initiative. It may seek information in writing or by making visits to firms, in which case Commission inspectors would always be accompanies by staff from the Office. Commission inspectors would always be accompanied by staff from the Office.