# Commission Decision of 30 October 2002 relating to a proceeding pursuant to Article 81 of the EC Treaty and Article 53 of the EEA Agreement (Case COMP/E-2/37.784 — Fine art auction houses) (Notified under document number C(2002) 4283 final and corrigenda C(2002) 4283/7 and C(2002) 4283/8) (Only the English text is authentic) (Text with EEA relevance) (2005/590/EC), Division (9): In more detail, the agreement and/or concerted practices between Christie’s and Sotheby’s contained the following elements:

Extent: E+W+S+N.I.

(a) Regarding the vendors:
agreeing to introduce a new ‘sliding scale’ for the vendor's commission,
agreeing to the terms applicable to the scale, including making the scale non-negotiable, that is, to allow no exceptions (save as agreed) to the scale,
agreeing the modalities, as well as the timing of its introduction,
agreeing to monitor the adherence to the scale by exchanging lists of the permitted exceptions in order to monitor the implementation of the agreement and to deter and discuss any deviations,
agreeing not to give vendors at auction guarantees as to the minimum price,
agreeing on a formula for the sharing with vendors of the ‘upside’ benefit where goods are sold more than the guaranteed price,
agreeing to make no advances to vendors on single lots,
agreeing and/or concerting on the terms and conditions of advances for particular auction sales,
agreeing the minimum interest rate for loans,
agreeing to limit the commission paid to trade vendors/dealers and to restrict the practice of providing insurance for trade vendors,
agreeing on limiting the payment of introductory commission (to 1 % of the buyer's premium in cases where there was no vendor's commission).
(b) Regarding the buyers:
agreeing to limit credit terms to trade buyers to 90 days.
(c) Other elements:
agreeing to limit their marketing efforts (avoiding claims/statements regarding market share or claiming ‘leadership’ in the art market or in a particular segment).

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2005/590/division/1/4/2 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2005-590/division-1/4/2
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.