New Market Investigation Tool: The Norwegian Government Publishes Draft Legislation

On 31 March 2023, the Norwegian Government published a consultation paper on the proposed amendments to the Competition Act. The draft legislation outlines the scope of the Norwegian Competition Authority's possible future powers to conduct market investigations.

In essence, the market investigation tool will allow the authority to conduct market investigations and subsequently impose behavioural or structural remedies to overcome any structural impediments to competition that are uncovered in the investigated markets.

The market investigation itself is not aimed at discovering infringements of competition rules. Instead, the purpose is to uncover competitively restrictive behaviour that needs to be addressed by specific measures going beyond what is possible under traditional competition legislation. In this way, competition authorities may address more general competition concerns in a market, rather than focusing only on individual companies' behaviour. Any