ABSTRACT
The Court made the point that derogations from the general application of articles 85 and 86 appear expressly in the Treaty in the relatively small number of cases where it is intended to grant such derogations, and there is no such general derogation for services, nor is there a more limited derogation for insurance or for financial services. The problem of regulating competition in the insurance sector at EU level is to some extent the familiar one of discouraging the use of cartels and the abuse of monopoly power. Standard policy conditions for direct insurance and standard models which illustrate the profits of a life assurance policy can be exempted from article 85. In article 17 of the Regulation the Commission reserves to itself the power to withdraw the benefit of the exemption in a particular case if it appears that the operation of the exemption is having undesirable anti-competitive effects.
