European Commission Proposes New Powers to Request Confidential Information From Companies and Trade Associations

On May 2, 2017, the European Commission published a legislative proposal for a Regulation on a Single Market Information Tool. If adopted, the proposed Regulation would empower the Commission to request information from companies and trade associations, from a wide variety of industrial, technological and services sectors, if the Commission finds that serious difficulties in applying European Union (“EU”) law may undermine an important Union policy objective. Companies and trade associations failing to provide the requested information would be subject to significant fines.