NORWAY Law and Practice Contributed by: Elin Moen, Arne Torsten Andersen, Helge Stemshaug and Beret Sundet, BAHR
affected markets, and a description of any barriers to entry in the affected markets; • a brief description of vertically overlapping markets where a merger is between a party operating upstream or downstream of a prod - uct market where another party operates, and the parties’ individual or combined market share exceeds 30% in at least one of these markets. The description of these markets should at least include the parties’ three most important competitors, customers, and sup - pliers; • explanation of any efficiency gains; • information on whether the merger is subject to review by other competition authorities; • the latest version of the merger agreement with attachments; and • the parties’ latest annual reports and financial statements. The information requirements for a notification specified in the Competition Act are the mini - mum required for a notification to be deemed as complete by the NCA. The parties may add sup - plemental information or elaborate beyond the minimum requirements. There is no pre-defined form for the notification nor any specified rou - tines for submitting the notification. The notifica - tion may – eg, be submitted through email or a secure download link. It is not necessary to pro - vide notarisations, power of attorney or similar. Note that pre-notification or submission of a draft notification is not required in Norway but may be recommended in complex cases. In addition, according to Section 18b Competi - tion Act, parties must submit a non-confidential version of the filing and a document summaris - ing the rationale for any confidentiality claims. The notification will not be deemed complete before this is submitted.
Filings must be submitted in Norwegian, but supporting documents can usually be submitted in English and other Scandinavian languages. The level of detail required for simplified filings (see 3.11 Accelerated Procedure ) is lower than that described above for full filings. The NCA is also willing to accept simplified filings in English. 3.6 Penalties/Consequences of Incomplete Notification After receiving a notification, the NCA must, according to Section 1 of the Notification Regu - lation, give the parties a notice within 15 working days if the notification is deemed incomplete. The NCA will then normally contact the parties and identify the information considered missing. Following this, the parties may either resubmit the notification including the missing informa - tion or supplement the notification with addi - tional information in a submission to the NCA. No sanctions are imposed when a notification is deemed incomplete, but the NCA’s deadlines will not run before the notification is complete. While the NCA has 15 working days to review completeness of the notification, this process normally takes only a few days. The NCA does not normally confirm in writing that the notifica - tion is deemed complete, but the publication of receipt of notification on the NCA’s website works as an informal confirmation of completeness. 3.7 Penalties/Consequences of Inaccurate or Misleading Information Providing incorrect or incomplete information to the NCA is generally subject to an administra - tive fine of up to 1% of a liable party’s aggregate annual turnover, provided that the infringement was negligent or intentional. This also applies to the information provided in a notification. Fines are likely to be higher in cases where parties
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