The article was first published in Fréttablaðið on 23 September 2022.
From time to time, it is claimed that competition enforcement in this country hinders foreign investment. This rhetoric was, for example, evident this summer regarding the Competition Authority's investigation into the French investment fund Ardian's acquisition of the infrastructure company Míla. The investigation concluded with a settlement last week, in which the parties agreed to significant changes to the commercial terms and conditions of Míla's operations, with the aim of protecting competition.
During the investigation of the case, it was claimed in an Icelandic business magazine that the merger control in this country was „hostile to foreign investment, which is already heavily bureaucratic.“
In response to this, it is worth pointing out that the provisions of Icelandic competition law have direct precedents in neighbouring countries and are, for the most part, identical to the competition rules of the EEA Agreement. The same applies to the Competition Authority's application of competition rules, as a recent report on a National Audit Office review sheds considerable light on. For example, just over a year ago, the French competition authorities annulled Ardian's acquisition of a company that operates energy infrastructure in France.
The fact is that competition law and oversight are designed to support foreign investment, not the other way around. EU and EEA competition rules, along with their application, are an important foundation for opening up markets. At the same time, they make it easier for investors to invest across borders and provide them with a certain degree of certainty about the regulatory environment they are entering.
Similarly, it is important for consumers here in Iceland that foreign investment supports the public interest. A few years ago, a respected British academic was asked, at a meeting on competition issues in Reykjavík, whether there was a risk that the country's competition rules and oversight would work against foreign investment. A guest is quick to notice, and he answered with another question which went something like this:
„Do Icelanders want foreign investment based on the foreign investor profiting from barriers to competition or a monopoly, at the expense of consumers?“
Páll Gunnar Pálsson,
Director-General of the Competition Authority
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