Under EU competition law, it is prohibited to conclude agreements distorting competition, but little guidance is available on what to consider anti-competitive. However, case law has given rise to patterns holding some practices anti-competitive by object while others must be assessed in detail and against their effect without providing a workable definition on the lines between these two approaches. Other issues remain equally open-ended, e.g., when the anti-competitive effect is appreciable. In this paper, a possible roadmap for the appraising of restrictive agreements in EU competition law will be provided.