FINLAND Trends and Developments Contributed by: Anna-Stéphanie Roubier, Johanna Kauppinen and Milja Vuopio, HPP Attorneys Ltd
In the meat sector, for instance, the producers’ aggregate share of the private label margin grew substantially between 2017 and 2023, suggest - ing that larger meat processors have strengthened their negotiating position in relation to the two dominant retail chains. • As regards food price inflation, the research demonstrated clearly that the sharp rise in prices between 2021 and 2023 reflected genuine cost increases – including feed, energy and packaging – rather than opportunistic price hikes. Gross mar - gins as a percentage of the selling price actually declined during this period. • On the price gap between branded and own-label products, the research produced a commercially significant finding – in 2022, more than 60% of the price difference between comparable products was explained not by production cost differences but by the retailer’s decision to apply a higher gross margin to the branded product. The FCCA’s research provides an important contri - bution to the current food market policy debate. The regulator’s analytical work will be applied to other food products, most notably the dairy market, where the underlying market dynamics might differ considerably. At the same time, it is of some interest that an express provision (Section 4a) in the Finnish Competition Act (No 948/2011, as amended), introduced in 2013, that recognises dominance in the daily consumer goods market (both at procurement and at retail levels) as of a 30% market share, has been to a large extent a dead letter to date. It remains to be seen whether the current debate may encourage the FCCA to invoke the specific provision in appropriate cases. Details Published of First Towercast Investigation The FCCA continues to advocate for call-in powers The FCCA has long advocated for the grant of call- in powers – ie, to have the competence to appraise below-threshold concentrations in circumstances where a transaction has a significant impact on the market. With successive governments unwilling to satisfy the FCCA’s calls, the regulator has, like some of its European counterparts, resorted to invoking the Court of Justice’s Towercast -jurisprudence (Case C-449/21). The Towercast judgment recognised the competence of national competition authorities and
national courts to investigate below-threshold con - centrations ex post on the basis of rules prohibiting the abuse of a dominant position. In 2025 the FCCA disclosed that it had two ongoing Towercast investigations, one relating to an acquisi - tion in the market for private healthcare services and the other in the chemicals sector. In May 2026, the FCCA publishing a Briefing Paper with further details of its first Towercast investigation, while also shed - ding light more generally on its use of the Towercast investigative tool. As regards the investigation, the FCCA disclosed that it related to the acquisition by Terveystalo, one of a handful of private health-care service providers that operate nationwide, of Cityläkarna Mariehamn Ab, a smaller competitor based in the Aaland Islands. The acquisition took place in September 2024 and fol - lowed an earlier similar acquisition by Terveystalo in the Aaland Islands, by which it had already acquired another smaller competitor. According to the FCCA, its investigation into the Terveystalo/Cityläkarna Mariehamn Ab transaction was closed with no further action. The regulator lacked sufficiently compelling evidence demonstrating that Terveystalo would have held a dominant position in occupational health-care services in the Aaland Islands prior to its acquisition of Cityläkarna Mariehamn Ab. In its Briefing Note, the FCCA did, however, conclude that the transac - tion would have given rise to intervention had ex-ante merger control been available. The FCCA’s Briefing Note has also shed light on the regulator’s use of the investigative tool. As regards detection, the regulator conducts ex officio market monitoring of (below-the-threshold) transactions that may raise competition concerns, and it also receives information from market participants. The actual inves - tigations are undertaken by the regulator’s antitrust unit, as opposed to its merger control unit, and the FCCA is open to providing guidance as to the appli - cation of the Towercast criteria to anticipated trans - actions. Given the FCCA’s limited resources, which have been further circumscribed by recent budget - ary cuts, the regulator concedes that it cannot initiate an in-depth investigation into all cases brought to its attention. According to the FCCA, information gather -
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