With judgment of the Supreme Court of Iceland A ruling of the Court of Appeal was delivered today. Court of Appeal Case no. 237:2023-confirmed as of 26 September 2024. In the judgment of the Court of Appeal, the Competition Authority was acquitted of Samskip hf.'s claim to annul the decision of the Competition Appeals Board, which had dismissed the company's complaint.
The circumstances of the case were that Samskip appealed to the Competition Appeals Tribunal a provision in settlement that Eimskipafélag Íslands hf. (Eimskip) made with the Competition Authority on 16 June 2021. In the settlement, Eimskip admitted serious collusion with Samskip, agreed to pay a fine and undertook, among other things, to cease all commercial cooperation with Samskip. In the complaint, Samskip demanded that Eimskip's commitments to cease all business cooperation with Samskip be annulled.
The Competition Appeals Board, however, dismissed the appeal on the grounds that Samskip had no legal interest in the determination of the obligations under Eimskip's settlement, see the Board's ruling of 2 December 2021.
Samskip did not accept the ruling and sued the Competition Authority in the Reykjavík District Court. The district court's judgment overturned the appeal board's decision, and Samskip was deemed to be able to challenge the legality of Eimskip's settlement before the appeal board. The Competition Authority appealed the judgment to the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal, however, found that the settlement was binding on Eimskip but not on Samskip. By its very nature, the settlement was intended to limit the cooperation between the companies that had been the subject of a investigation by the Competition Authority. A party to an investigation for alleged collusion, who has not admitted an infringement, cannot be considered a party to a settlement of the party who has admitted an infringement and paid a fine. Among other things, and with reference to this, Samskip was not considered to have demonstrated that the company had a legitimate interest in a ruling on what obligation Eimskip had undertaken towards the Competition Authority through the settlement.
Today's Supreme Court judgment refers to the decision of the Competition Appeals Tribunal of 19 March 2025 in case no. 7/2023. In that ruling, the Competition Authority's finding that Samskip had committed extensive and serious infringements by engaging in illegal collusion with Eimskip was upheld. The order also upheld the injunctions issued against Samskip with the aim of protecting and strengthening competition. These were similar to the orders found in the settlement with Eimskip.
The Supreme Court's judgment points out that settlements are one of the statutory remedies available to competition authorities in the enforcement of competition law. Should the Competition Authority have to„can rely on a settlement involving an undertaking to constitute a final resolution of the matter against the company and that it will implement the measures to which it has committed itself. The commitments a company thus undertakes to prevent further infringements and to promote effective competition will therefore generally not be severed from the other provisions of the settlement.“Reference is then made to the fact that Samskip can test this by lodging a complaint with the Competition Authority if the company believes that Eimskip's refusal of certain transactions constitutes an abuse of Eimskip's alleged dominant market position. With reference to this, among other things, the judgment of the Court of Appeal was upheld.
