Qualification Exclusive Vertical Clauses as Anti-Competitive Agreements and Their Legal Outcomes Under Georgian, German, and European Union Competition Law

The association regime with the EU has placed Georgia under an obligation to create comprehensive competition law and, to some extent, to harmonize Georgian competition law with the EU law. In the process of complete approximation, it is essential to analyze the concepts and terms of competition law based on the best practices of the EU and its member states and the achievements of legal doctrine as it covers one of the significant concepts of competition law, the present dissertation serves to achieve this goal.
Technological development in the modern world leads to the emergence of different markets and a significant transformation of the existing ones. Furthermore, it increases the diverse commercial relations between undertakings operating at different demand and supply chain levels. It naturally raises the number and importance of vertical contracts between them. Transactions involving exclusive vertical clauses are of great significance in such vertical relationships.
Exclusive vertical clauses play an essential role in developing economic systems, where imports of foreign products primarily drive the diversity of goods and services. Moreover, the existence of exclusive vertical clauses in the legal relationship between a foreign manufacturer and an importer is not new. Therefore, it is necessary to identify and define exclusive vertical clauses that threaten an undistorted competitive environment in the country's commodity and service markets.
Similar clauses are essential for the manufacturer to protect their brand image and reputation. This is the basis for considering exclusive clauses in commercial relations with such manufacturers. One of the objectives of the presented dissertation is to find a golden middle ground between the producer's interests on the one hand and the interest of protection of fierce competition on the other, which adds significant scientific value and practical importance to the presented research.
The main feature of the exclusive vertical clause is that, under the specifics of a particular market and economic conditions, it may, on the one hand, have a restrictive effect on competition. But, on the other hand, it may become one of the determining factors for the growth of the level of competition in the relevant market. Therefore, an accurate assessment of the effects of an exclusive vertical clause is the main prerequisite for determining its compatibility with competition law requirements. Thus, the dissertation focuses on identifying different types of the mentioned effects and the criteria, methods and means necessary for their analysis. A detailed analysis of the mentioned issues will make the legal consequences of transactions involving exclusive vertical clauses more predictable for undertakings and reduce the risks of imposing sanctions and other types of liability for violation of competition law.
Therefore, it is necessary to form the optimal model of the legal framework, which will be able to respond to the challenges of the modern economy. In the research process, it is essential to pay attention not only to national legislation and its practical implementation but also to international practice and the steps taken by different countries in this field. Accordingly, in the presented research, an important place is given to comparative legal studies, which mainly focus on EU and German competition law.
The dissertation analyzes such issues as the general system of anticompetitive agreements, the concept of the undertaking, forms of coordination of undertakings, the element of restriction of competition, market dimensions of anticompetitive agreements, exemptions from the prohibition of anticompetitive agreements, types of exclusive vertical clauses and the prerequisites for qualifying them as anticompetitive agreements, its elements, legal outcomes and relevant practical and theoretical issues.