Europaudvalget 2021-22
EUU Alm.del Bilag 365
Offentligt
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8. marts 2022
The Danish Government’s response to
the initiative regarding an up-
date of the market definition notice
The Danish Government welcomes the opportunity to comment on the
Commission’s public
call for evidence regarding the initiative on updating
the market definition notice.
The notice offers highly relevant and useful guidance for companies and
their advisers as well as for national competition authorities when conside-
ring questions on how to define the relevant market in antitrust and merger
cases.
The Danish Government agrees
with the findings of the Commission’s
evaluation that the market definition notice
dating back to 1997
would
benefit from an update taking into account, among others, recent case law,
technological developments, and developments in the ways companies of-
fer their goods and services. An updated notice would continue to serve as
important guidance and a useful tool for companies and competition aut-
horities.
The Danish Government would like to repeat the following factors of im-
portance which the Commission should have in mind when drafting of the
updated market definition notice:
Bringing the market definition notice up to date, but no need for fundamen-
tal changes
We welcome the initiative of the Commission to update the 1997 market
definition notice. The Danish Government finds that the approach set out
in the market definition notice still serves as a solid foundation for the as-
sessment of the relevant market. Thus, there is no need for a fundamental
revision of the notice. The focal point of market definition must continue
to rest on credible empirical evidence. Therefore, the Danish Government
finds that the update of the notice should focus on introducing recent case
law as well as new investigative techniques and economic methods. The
updated notice should also address questions of how to define markets in-
volving new technologies or new ways of offering goods and services,
including in relation to situations that are not explicitly addressed in the
existing notice, e.g. multi-sided markets and products with a monetary
price of zero.
Effective and independent enforcement that continues to handle inherently
dynamic nature of market definition
EUU, Alm.del - 2021-22 - Bilag 365: Notat samt høringssvar vedr. initiativ om opdatering af meddelelsen om afgrænsning af det relevante marked i konkurrencesager
It is essential to guarantee independent competition law enforcement in or-
der to ensure effective competition within the Single Market. Effective
competition benefits European consumers through lower prices, higher qu-
ality, more choice and increased innovation. Moreover, it is important that
competition law enforcement take due account of global competition and
other market dynamics, among others when assessing the relevant geogra-
phical market in a merger case.
The inherently dynamic nature of market definition is exemplified by the
fact that the Commission finds the geographical markets to be at least EEA-
wide or wider in an increasing share of its merger decisions. Furthermore,
competitive constraints from outside the geographical market are taken
into consideration in current practice, when such competitive constraints
are demonstrated. While the Danish Government finds the current ap-
proach to market definition fully suited for taking changing market condi-
tions into account
including analyses of the importance of global compe-
tition when relevant
– we agree with the Commission’s intention to update
the notice in order to better reflect the practice and methods concerning,
among others, the globalised nature of some commercial exchanges.
We hope these comments will be useful for your further work. The Danish
Ministry of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs would be at your
disposal for further elaboration or any follow-up questions you may have.
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