How VBER gives EU brands the legal foundation to control who sells their products

Unauthorised sellers are not just a nuisance. They are costing you the Buy Box, your brand presentation standards, and the customer relationships you have spent years building. The good news: EU law already gives you the tools to stop them.

What VBER actually is

The Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (VBER) is the EU competition law framework that governs agreements between suppliers and their distributors. The current version, Regulation (EU) 2022/720, came into force in June 2022 and updated the rules that had been in place since 2010.

At its core, VBER creates a legal safe harbour. If your brand and your distributors each hold less than 30% market share in the relevant market, you can set up a selective distribution system without needing to apply for individual exemption from competition law. That means you can define exactly who is authorised to sell your products, on what channels, and under what conditions.

For most mid-sized and premium brands operating in the EU, this is directly actionable right now.

Why selective distribution matters for marketplace sellers

Under a properly structured selective distribution agreement, you can require authorised distributors not to sell to unauthorised resellers. When that system is in place and enforced, the grey market activity that floods your Amazon listings and undermines your authorised channel loses its legal ground.

The 2022 VBER revision brought welcome clarity on a point that had caused significant uncertainty: brands operating a selective distribution system now have clearer grounds  to restrict authorised distributors from selling via specific third-party online marketplaces where the brand cannot maintain consistent  presentation and quality standards. This is a significant shift. For years, brands struggled to enforce marketplace restrictions without running into competition law challenges. The updated regulation makes that path clearer.

This does not mean you can ban online sales entirely. Authorised distributors can still sell online through their own websites and approved digital channels. What you gain is the ability to prevent your authorised partners from feeding stock into the same Amazon listings where unauthorised sellers are already eroding your Buy Box.

The connection to Buy Box erosion

Buy Box loss is rarely random. It follows a pattern: a distributor sells excess stock to a secondary wholesaler, who sells to a third party, who lists on Amazon without authorisation, putting your brand positioning - and customer experience - at risk. By the time the product reaches the marketplace, it is three steps removed from your distribution agreement and outside any direct relationship you can enforce.

VBER does not solve this overnight. But it gives you the contractual and legal architecture to restrict who can receive your products from authorised distributors, enforce conditions on where and by whom your products are sold downstream, and challenge unauthorised listings on the basis of a documented, legally compliant selective distribution system.

Brands that have built this infrastructure are the ones regaining Buy Box ownership.

What this requires in practice

VBER is a framework, not a magic fix. To benefit from the safe harbour, you need distribution agreements that are properly drafted, market share positions that sit below the 30% threshold, and a system that is genuinely applied rather than selectively enforced.

Getting this right requires three things working together: legal foundations that hold up to scrutiny, data to identify where unauthorised stock is entering the market, and the operational capacity to act on that intelligence at speed.

Taking back control starts with knowing where you stand. That's where Pattern comes in: We help brands identify every seller on every marketplace, trace stock leakage back through the supply chain, and build the data record needed to support enforcement. Alongside that, brands in our portfolio can work with our designated independent counsel partner to build compliant selective distribution systems, with Pattern covering the fees.

The brands winning on Amazon in the EU are not the ones reacting to unauthorised sellers. They are the ones who built the legal and operational foundations to prevent them from gaining a foothold in the first place.

If unauthorised sellers are on your listings, the distribution gap already exists. Pattern can show you exactly where the gaps are. Get in touch today. 

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