20. juni 2022
Danish Government response to the call for contributions on the Com-
missions consultation on an update of the Informal Guidance Notice
The Danish Government appreciates the opportunity to comment on the
call for contributions on the Informal Guidance Notice.
There is a growing demand for advice on how to assess agreements in re-
lation to the antitrust rules, especially when it comes to issues related to
sustainability. More clarity is needed on how businesses can design sus-
tainability agreements without infringing the competition rules.
In order to avoid divergent approaches at national level it is important that
cooperating undertakings and EU-competition authorities apply the same
interpretation of the EU-competition rules. As a starting point, clarification
should therefore primarily be given in the form of EU-general policy
guidelines such as the Commission’s
Horizontal
and Vertical Guidelines
or in similar forms.
The Danish Government recognizes, however, that such general guidelines
will not always suffice in relation to all questions that may arise on novel
areas.
Therefore, the Danish government supports the general objective of this
call in order to give the Commission better possibilities to provide guid-
ance to individual businesses in case of genuine uncertainty on aspects of
competition law and, for the time being, especially questions related to sus-
tainability agreements.
Since such guidance will become publicly available, it will be to the benefit
of businesses in general. In addition, such guidance, given at Commission-
level, will help to ensure uniform enforcement of the EU-competition
rules.