FINLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Anna-Stéphanie Roubier, Johanna Kauppinen and Milja Vuopio, HPP Attorneys Ltd
8. Appeals and Judicial Review 8.1 Access to Appeal and Judicial Review In accordance with Section 49a of the Competition Act, the FCCA’s decisions approving a merger may be appealed to the Market Court, which is the first- instance appeal body. In practice, appeals are virtually non-existent, primar - ily because third parties have essentially no right to challenge the FCCA’s merger clearance decisions (see 7.1 Third-Party Rights ), while the notifying party or parties would have no reason or interest to do so. The FCCA’s clearance decisions that approve a concentration subject to commitments cannot be appealed, since the imposition of commitments requires the prior consent of the notifying party (par - ties). Having consented to the commitments, the noti - fying party (parties) cannot subsequently challenge the conditional clearance. Additionally, procedural decisions (such as stop-the- clock decisions, findings that a notification is materi - ally incomplete, the initiation of Phase II investigations and the conduct of dawn raids) cannot be appealed during the process, meaning these decisions can only be challenged if an appeal is lodged against the FCCA’s clearance decision itself. By the time the review process is concluded, appeals relating to pro - cedural matters have generally lost their relevance. An appeal against decisions of the Market Court lies with the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court. Con - trary to the general requirement, no separate leave of appeal is required in competition law cases. 8.2 Typical Timeline for Appeals Appeals against decisions of the FCCA and the Mar - ket Court must be lodged within 30 days from notice of the decision. 8.3 Ability of Third Parties to Appeal Clearance Decisions Third parties, such as customers, competitors or sup - pliers, do not have a right to appeal the FCCA’s deci - sion to the Market Court (or to the Finnish Supreme
concentration. The FCCA may also use other means of communication, such as telephone calls and (vir - tual/physical) meetings. 7.3 Confidentiality A non-confidential version of the notification must be submitted together with the final notification. The non- confidential version is not published as such, but it can be obtained upon request (the request need not be reasoned). Once a notification has been submitted, a non-con - fidential description, which has been provided by the notifying party (parties), will be published on the FCCA’s website. This usually occurs on the day (or within a few days) after the submission of the notifi - cation. The FCCA publishes non-confidential versions of its decisions on its website. Before publication, busi - ness secrets and other confidential information are removed from the public version. In accordance with the Act on the Openness of Government Activities ( laki viranomaisten toiminnan julkisuudesta , 621/1999, as amended), the FCCA’s documents are, as a general rule, public. However, a document may be classified as confidential if it contains business secrets and/or other confidential information. An interested party has the right to be informed of the contents of a non-public document if it could influence, or has influenced, proceedings. 7.4 Co-Operation With Other Jurisdictions The FCCA regularly liaises with competition authori - ties from other jurisdictions. For instance, the FCCA is part of the European Competition Network (ECN), including in the field of merger control. The FCCA also co-operates with the European Commission, for instance, in the context of the merger control refer - ral mechanism (eg, see Case M.11241 EEX / NASDAQ POWER in 2.11 Power of Authorities to Investigate a Transaction ). The Nordic competition authorities also have a long tradition of co-operation, which covers merger control matters. The Nordic co-operation has been codified in a co-operation agreement, which has been in force since 2017.
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