Today no one questions the benefits of allowing consumers to choose freely between suppliers of electricity and telecommunications services. This is however a fairly recent development.

Not long ago the provision of these services was reserved for few national public sector incumbents, who were often also entrusted with regulatory tasks.

This development is interesting and notable in itself. However, equally or perhaps even more interesting, is the role played by competition law in the process. Most observers agree that competition law only played a limited role in this transformation due to the limited ability of competition law to address the special problems and complexity of the electricity and telecommunications sectors. These observations are based on perceived shortcomings in regulating these complex sectors of industry. As it will be demonstrated the observations are not only incorrect but also fail to do justice to the very active role played by competition law. Looking back on the process of liberalization that started more than 25 years ago, it is apparent that absent the ‘sledgehammer’ effect of its competition law tools, the EU Commission would have been significantly worse positioned in extending the internal market concept to the provision of electricity and telecommunication services. Arguably, the whole liberalization process would never have come about or would have taken a different direction. However, in this process competition law has been ‘twisted’ to a point of giving it a certain regulatory flavour.

The purpose of this book is to develop the understanding of the liberalization process in its entirety including the role played by competition law. Moreover, some words of caution will be offered against expanding the application of competition law to these sectors further without careful consideration of the long term ramifications for the sectors and competition law. 

The Author

Christian Bergqvist is a graduate in law (2000) holds a PhD (2006) and rejoined the world of academia in 2008 as assistant and lately associated professor.

Formålet med fusionskontrol er ikke at hindre fusioner. Formålet med fusionskontrol er at hindre begrænsninger af konkurrencen som følge af virksomheders fusioner. Konkurrencelovens regler om fusionskontrol skal forstås ud fra formålet med loven, som er " ... at fremme en effektiv samfundsmæssig ressourceanvendelse gennem virksom konkurrence ...".

Reglerne om fusionskontrol i konkurrenceloven har været gældende i mere end 11 år. Konkurrenceloven indeholder reglerne om fusionskontrol og tilvejebringer grundlaget for at hindre, at virksomheders fusioner skader den effektive konkurrence på et marked i forhold til situationen før fusionen. Omsætningstærsklerne for anmeldelsespligtige fusioner blev i 2010 sænket markant, og langt flere fusioner er derfor nu omfattet af anmeldelsespligt efter konkurrenceloven.

Bogen behandler konkurrencelovens regler om fusionskontrol, som sikrer, at det forudgående vurderes, om en planlagte fusion kan forventes at føre til begrænsninger af konkurrencen. Bogen afspejler den proces, som anmeldelsen og behandlingen af en fusion gennemløber

Denne bog ser på det aspekt af den danske konkurrencelov, der involverer fusioner i virksomheder. Hvert kapitel gennemgår et led i processen omkring fusion fra anmeldelsen af fusionen, over behandlingsproces, bedømmelse og godkendelse.

Herudover ser forfatterne også på fusionskontrol i Grønland og på Færøerne, hvor andre konkurrencelove gælder, hvilket man skal være særligt opmærksom på, hvis en fusion har tilknytning til Grønland eller Færøerne.