Alexander Brøchner

Competition law contains wide-ranging prohibitions against anticompetitive issues when companies enter into agreements with either competitors, suppliers or distributors. The content of the prohibitions has developed in 60+ years of case law and is backed up by competition authorities having the authority to carry out intrusive investigations and imposing fines. Navigating these prohibitions can sometimes be difficult and involve substantial assessment and judgment calls. It is up to companies to self-assess their agreements to ensure compliance. Block exemption regulations (or in short ‘block exemptions’) are amongst the most used EU antitrust tools in day to day operations for competition law advisors, both in private practice and in companies. Block exemptions play an important role in ensuring inter alia consistency and legal certainty in (self) assessing a range of common commercial actions when dealing with e.g. competitors, suppliers and distributors. Without block exemptions, it would be much more complex for companies to assess, whether many of their commonly occurring activities entail any risk of constituting infringements of competition law.

The Danish High Court has affirmed that Article 6(1) of the Danish Competition Act (corresponding to Article 101(1) TFEU), was infringed by a natural gas company, Hovedstadsregionens og Midt-Nords Naturgasselskab I/S (“HMN”), the trade association and two subcontractors, as these parties entered (...)

The revision of the method for determining the size of fines has inter alia happened as a result of the recent implementation of the ECN+ Directive, which has increased the decision-making powers of the SCA, including providing the SCA with the power to impose fines on companies on its own. (...)

In February 2021 the Swedish Competition Authority (“SCA”) published a report which covers the increasing influence of digital platforms within the field of competition law. Themes of the report In its report, the SCA has analysed five markets along with the SCA´s previous decisional practice (...)

The Danish Complaints Board for Public Procurement (“Board of Appeal”) has in a recent decision established that a consortium agreement which is in breach of Article 101 TFEU or Article 6 in the Danish Competition Act will be invalid, thus also making the bid and any contracts engaged in by the (...)

As a part of the implementation of the ECN+ Directive, a new competition act has been proposed by the Danish Government. The proposed competition act entails several extensive and intrusive changes to the current competition act. Accordingly, companies should be aware that these amendments will (...)