Morten Nissen is a partner and co-head of the international Competition & EU group at Bird & Bird, based in Copenhagen. He also leads the Competition & EU team in Denmark. He has a particular focus on applying competition & EU law as a tool to achieve specific and measurable business objectives for clients. Competition authorities act differently in different countries. He has solid international experience and an outlook based on working for more than 12 years as a lawyer based in Brussels, which includes doing a number of fascinating competition cases in many countries across Europe as well as Asia. This first-hand experience helps him better navigate cases to obtain results that make a difference. His prime focus is on state aid, competition restricting agreements, and abuse of dominance. I have made numerous EU and national merger control notifications, and he is always focused on optimising the business outcome and delivering competitive advantage. He is proud to say he has been involved in a high number of cases that made new case law. His sector experience is particularly strong in the pharmaceutical, copyright, media, IT, telecoms, passenger transport and international payment systems sectors. Over the years, he has represented clients in a large number of legal procedures before the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Amongst these, he has won four appeal cases against the EU Commission, including a state aid case before the Grand Chamber of the EU court of justice which ultimately led to the EU Commission’s Legal Service turning around and choosing him to represent the Commission in a number of other state aid cases. Until 2012, he was a partner in the Brussels office. He left Bird & Bird to start a pharmaceutical business and other start-ups. After this, he was Of Counsel at a leading Danish firm, before finding his way home to Bird & Bird in 2018. At Bird & Bird, he benefits from a truly international set-up and he has a personal network that allows him to know exactly who is well placed to handle a particular case in one of many offices around the word. It particularly allows him to pull in points of view from a high-quality pool of 65 competition lawyers around the world. He is a member of the World Competition, Law and Economics Journals Advisory Board (Kluwer) and co-authored ’Guide to EU Pharmaceutical Regulatory Law’ (Kluwer).
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The Danish Competition Council (“the DCC”) has, in a recent decision, found that the Danish Association of Peugeot Dealers infringed Article 6 of the Danish Competition Act and Article 101(1) TFEU by engaging in a collective boycott of the Danish platform for advertisement and sale of cars, (...)
176
A recent investigation by the Swedish Competition Authority (“SCA”) into discussions in a trade forum demonstrates that it is crucial that participants react quickly if any information that may potentially be considered anti-competitive is exchanged. The SCA investigated whether companies (...)
2390
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.
196
In 2017, a competitor to a Danish sportswear producer filed a complaint with the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority (“DCCA”) regarding resale price maintenance of said producer. The sportswear producer had put pressure on its distributors to respect the recommended price as a minimum (...)
287
On the 27th April 2021, the Danish Competition Appeals Tribunal (“DCAT”) upheld a June 2020 decision by the Danish Competition Council (“DCC”). The DCC concluded that FK Distribution (FK), as the biggest distributor of unaddressed mail (print circulars) in Denmark, had abused its dominant (...)
353
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 (...)
218
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. (...)
452
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 (...)
242
The case centred around a consortium that was handling the renovation of the engines of the IC3 trains of the Danish State Railways. A member of the consortium, Fleco ApS (Fleco), was in several ways restricted from buying spare parts to be used in the renovation of the train engines. The (...)
132
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 (...)
170
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 (...)
98
In order to contribute to the ongoing policy discussion on the challenges following the rise of digital technologies, the Nordic competition authorities have published a memorandum entitled “Digital platforms and the potential changes to competition law at the European level”. The aim of the (...)
96
A Danish digital platform facilitating contact between providers of cleaning services and customers, www.hilfr.dk (‘Hilfr’), operated with a minimum hourly fee as a prerequisite for the providers to offer their services on the platform. The providers of cleaning services using Hilfr are (...)
121
On 12 June 2020, the European Commission published an overview of the State aid measures approved under Article 107(2)b TFEU, Article 107(3)b and under the Temporary State Aid Framework since the beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak. Following the outbreak of the Coronavirus on 19 March (...)
62
On 28 May 2020, the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority (DCCA) received a complete notification of SEAS-NVE A/S’ (SEAS-NVE) acquisition of control of several subsidiaries of Ørsted A/S. Based on an overall assessment, the DCCA assessed that the merger would give rise to unilateral (...)
278
In an unprecedented move, the Danish merger control deadlines have been suspended from the 18 March due to the COVID-19 situation until 10 May for now. When undertakings wish to implement a larger merger, the Competition and Consumer Authority (“DCA”) must ensure that the merger will not (...)
316
Competition rules are aimed at safeguarding healthy competition between companies. For more than half a century the EU and its Member States have vigorously defended effective competition by pursuing and sanctioning anti-competitive agreements and abuses of dominant positions. The pharma (...)
64
The Danish Competition and Consumer Authority ("DCCA") has for the first time ever requested a referral of a merger to the European Commission under Article 22(1) of the EU Merger Regulation. The referral concerns the proposed acquisition by Mastercard/Europay U.K Limited of certain parts of (...)
603
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been declared an exceptional occurrence, paving the way for more and faster approval of national State aid initiatives in the EU. The massive and unprecedented financial impact on the world economy has led to a number of European governments promising (...)
432
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been declared an exceptional occurrence, paving the way for more and faster approval of national State aid initiatives in the EU. The massive and unprecedented financial impact on the world economy has led to a number of European governments promising (...)
363
On 3 March 2020, the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court found a medicine distributor, CD Pharma AB, guilty of having abused its dominant position back in 2014. Due to its dominant position, the undertaking in question had a special responsibility not to harm competition – a responsibility (...)
93
On 7 January 2020, the Danish High Court (“High Court”) found the two construction groups, Jorton A/S and H. Skjøde Knudsen A/S, guilty of having infringed the Danish Competition Act by exchanging prices and coordinating tenders on several construction contracts. The High Court found that (...)
125
On 10 December 2019, the Danish High Court found that the Danish company, Icon Hairspa A/S, was guilty of illegal resale price maintenance by dictating the minimum resale price of certain hair products for their retailers. From 2016 to 2017, Icon Hairspa required that all retailers ought to (...)
133
On 27 November 2019, the Danish Supreme Court delivered its judgment in the expected ’’Road marking case’’, deciding that two undertakings had infringed the Danish Competition Act by submitting joint bids for a project for the Danish Road Directorate in 2014. In February 2014, the Danish (...)
61
On 21 October 2019, the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court found two Danish companies, Mediacenter Danmark and MPE Distribution, guilty of having entered into an anticompetitive agreement to share customers on the market for the purchase and sale of the distribution of unaddressed mail. It (...)
46
On the 24th of September 2019, two Danish companies Bjerregaard Sikkerhed A/S and Bacher Logistics A/S were acquitted by the Danish Competition Authority (DCCA) of illegally coordinating prices and other terms. The case stems from an interministerial procurement of five framework agreements (...)
85
The Danish purchasing association for photo dealers, Team DS, has accepted a fine consisting of DKK 1.3 million for infringing the Danish Competition Act by coordinating prices and illegal information exchange. In addition to the imposition of a fine on the association itself, a fine of DKK (...)
62
On 26 June 2019, the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority ("CCA") announced that the Danish oil and petrol service station company Circle K Denmark A/S accepted to pay a fine of DKK 6.000.000 (EUR 800.000) for failure to notify an acquisition as required under the merger control rules in (...)
64
On 12 June 2019, the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court found that a price coordination agreement between HMN Naturgas I/S, its two sub-contractors and a trade organisation had the object of restricting competition. HMN is a municipally owned natural gas undertaking that offers a (...)
195
On 1 May 2019, the Danish Competition Authority ("DCA") increased its focus on digital platforms by establishing a new center for this matter. The DCA has found it necessary to establish this center as digital platforms play an increasing role in trade with goods and services. The purpose of (...)
99
On 5 April 2019, the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority ("Authority") announced that 45 retail and online stores (including pharmacies, shops, cafés, restaurants and online stores) have received injunctions from the Authority to remove all illegal payment-card fees they were charging (...)
40
On 7 March 2019, a Danish plumbing company (Christoffersen & Knudsen A/S) was fined DKK 575,000 (€ 77,000) by the Danish State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime for entering into a cartel agreement with their competitor (Sanoterm Danmark A/S). In the same case (...)
69
On 8 February 2019, the City Court of Hillerød concluded that CMP Nedrivning ApS (a Danish demolition company) had violated section 6 of the Danish Competition Act (corresponding to Article 101 TFEU) by coordinating prices with competing demolition companies. The company was found to be part (...)
75
On 30 January 2019, the Danish Competition Council ("DCC") established that Falck abused its dominant position (Danish Competition Act § 11 - Article 102 TFEU), by excluding the Dutch company BIOS from the Danish market for ambulance services. Falck is the largest provider of ambulance (...)
61
Google Adwords is a service that allows undertakings to bid on one or more keywords, to prompt an advertising link for the undertaking to appear on a search page, when Google users search on relevant keywords in the Google search engine. Which links are displayed after a Google search on the (...)
33
A Danish media agency, Mediacenter Danmark A/S (‘Mediacenter’) entered into a customer sharing agreement from November 2013 to December 2014 with their competitor MPE Distribution (‘MPC’) in the market for distribution of unaddressed mail. MPC decided to notify the Danish Competition and (...)
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Competition Case Law Digest 5th Edition - A Synthesis of US, EU and National Leading Cases
