KKV:n toimenpiteet ja sitoumuspäätökset kilpailunrajoitusasioissa/EN

Suomeksi

The Competition Act (948/2011) gives the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (FCCA) a graduated toolkit for resolving suspected restrictions of competition — from a finding of infringement and an order to terminate it, to a commitment decision, structural remedies, withdrawal of the benefit of a block exemption, and urgent interim measures. This article goes through the content of these five provisions (sections 9, 9a, 10, 11 and 45) and their practical significance when advising a client.

Avainkohdat

• Mistä on kyse: Sections 9, 9a, 10, 11 and 45 of the Competition Act form the FCCA's procedural toolkit in competition restriction cases: finding and terminating an infringement, structural remedies, commitment decisions, withdrawal of the benefit of a block exemption, and urgent interim measures.
• Miksi sillä on kaupallista merkitystä: Which provision the FCCA proceeds under (or which route the undertaking itself chooses by offering commitments) determines the duration of the proceeding, its publicity, the risk of a sanction, and whether the matter results in a formal finding of infringement that can serve as a basis for later damages claims.
• Mikä menee useimmin pieleen: A commitment decision (section 10) is not a "free" way out: the FCCA can reopen the matter if circumstances change materially, if the commitments are breached, or if the decision was based on incomplete or misleading information. Nor does a commitment bind the FCCA in a similar future matter against another operator.

Overview: The FCCA's Toolkit

Chapter 3 of the Competition Act ("Measures, Sanctions and Damages Concerning Prohibited Restrictions of Competition") contains the FCCA's core tools for the substantive resolution of a competition restriction case, while section 45 in Chapter 6 ("Miscellaneous Provisions") provides an urgent interim measure that can be used at any stage while the main matter is being investigated.

• Section 9 — the FCCA finds an infringement and orders it to be terminated, if necessary with behavioural remedies.
• Section 9a — in the most serious cases, the Market Court may, on a proposal from the FCCA, order a structural remedy (e.g. divestment of a business unit).
• Section 10 — the FCCA may make commitments offered by an undertaking binding and close the matter without a finding of infringement.
• Section 11 — within a narrow scope, the FCCA may withdraw the benefit of an EU block exemption regulation in the territory of Finland.
• Section 45 — the FCCA may issue an urgent interim order if serious harm to competition threatens before the main matter is resolved.

The commitment and infringement routes are not mutually exclusive over time: a commitment decision made under section 10 can later be reopened, and the matter can then proceed to a finding of infringement under section 9 (and, in the extreme, section 9a) if the commitments do not work in practice.

Section 9 — Finding and Termination of an Infringement

Section 9 is the FCCA's core power: if an undertaking or association of undertakings infringes or has infringed section 5 or 7 of the Competition Act or Article 101 or 102 TFEU, the FCCA may itself — without the involvement of the Market Court — find the infringement and order it to be terminated. Subsection 2 entitles the FCCA to order the infringing party to implement behavioural remedies (e.g. terminating a particular practice or amending contract terms), provided they are proportionate to the infringement and necessary for its effective termination.

The provision took its current form with Act 546/2021, which entered into force on 24 June 2021 as part of the implementation of the ECN+ Directive (EU 2019/1). The reform introduced into the Act an express finding of infringement (previously the Act referred only to an order to terminate a restriction of competition), matching the model of the Directive and of Article 7 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003.

Section 9 itself does not contain any power to impose a fine or sanction: the financial sanction (the fine) follows a separate route, via a proposal from the FCCA to the Market Court. Section 9 is thus an administrative "terminate the infringement" decision, which can be made as part of the same overall resolution as a fine proposal, but which is legally distinct from it.

Practical example: A large share of the FCCA's concrete cartel and abuse-of-dominance matters rest, in the background, precisely on section 9, even where the decision is published as a commitment decision (section 10) or a fine proposal. Section 9 often functions as a "background threat" that prompts an undertaking to correct its conduct already during the investigation — for example, the FCCA's inquiry into the Finnish ice hockey league's (SM-liiga) series system was concluded without a formal decision, once the league corrected its practices during the investigation.

Section 9a — Structural Remedies

Section 9a, added by the 546/2021 reform, is the "heavy artillery" previously absent from Finnish competition law: an undertaking can be required to divest a shareholding in a competitor's share capital, divest a business unit, or implement some other structural remedy.

Three key limitations distinguish section 9a from the behavioural remedies under section 9:

• Subsidiarity: a structural remedy is available only if a behavioural remedy would not be sufficient to remedy the infringement, or if a behavioural remedy would be more burdensome for the undertaking than a structural one.
• Proportionality: where both types of remedy would be equally effective, the less burdensome option for the undertaking must be chosen.
• Preservation of viability: a structural remedy must not cause the undertaking to lose the conditions necessary for carrying on its remaining business.

Procedurally, the FCCA cannot itself order a structural remedy: it may only propose one to the Market Court, which alone decides the matter, and the undertaking must be given the opportunity to be heard before the proposal is made. The design thus follows the same logic as fine proposals: a measure with the most intrusive and irreversible consequences always requires the involvement of a court, whereas the FCCA may decide the lighter measures (sections 9 and 10) itself.

Epäselvä oikeustila

The provision does not appear to have been applied in practice since it entered into force (24.6.2021), and no Market Court or FCCA decision practice has yet developed on what is considered an "equally effective" behavioural alternative, or when the conditions for viability are deemed lost. The precise content of the threshold is therefore legally untested.

Section 10 — Commitments (Commitment Decision)

Section 10 gives the FCCA the possibility of making commitments offered by an undertaking involved in a suspected restriction of competition binding, if they can remove the anti-competitive nature of the conduct. The FCCA first consults market participants (a kind of market test), and the commitment decision must at the same time state that there are no longer grounds for further FCCA action. The decision may be in force indefinitely or for a fixed period.

It is essential that a commitment decision does not contain a formal finding of an infringement of the law — unlike a decision under section 9. This makes the route attractive to an undertaking: the proceeding concludes more quickly, publicity is often better controlled, and no direct fine attaches to the decision. Under subsection 2, however, the FCCA may reopen the matter if

1. the facts on which the decision was based have changed materially,
2. the commitments are breached, or
3. the decision was based on incomplete, incorrect, or misleading information supplied by the parties.

Verified examples from FCCA decision practice:

• DNA Oyj / Telia Finland Oyj (2025): the FCCA examined the competitive effects of expanding the operators' mobile network cooperation (MOCN). The companies gave commitments concerning, among other things, information exchange and services offered to virtual and service operators, and the FCCA closed the matter with a commitment decision on 23 May 2025.
• Automatia Pankkiautomaatit Oy: the FCCA ordered commitments to be complied with on the market for wholesale real-time payment services; the commitment decision was made in a matter initiated in 2015, and the company's application to have the commitments removed was decided under section 10 on 1 November 2021 — an illustrative example of the subsection 2 "reopening mechanism" in practice.
• Säveltäjäin Tekijänoikeustoimisto Teosto ry: the FCCA ordered commitments to be complied with on the market for management services for musical copyrights, in a matter originally initiated in 2014.
• Banks, consumer credit market: the FCCA ordered commitments to be complied with by several banks on the consumer credit market, in a matter initiated in 2014.

A complete and up-to-date list of the FCCA's prohibition, commitment and supply-obligation decisions can be found in the FCCA's decision database.

Käytännön huomio

When a client receives a request for information from the FCCA, or another signal of a pending competition restriction investigation, the choice between offering commitments and contesting the matter is worth making deliberately, not by default:

• The commitment route (section 10) is typically faster, does not involve a formal finding of infringement, does not lead directly to a fine, and gives the undertaking more influence over the content of the outcome (the drafting of the commitments) than contesting the matter. The downside is that the commitment is public, subject to a market test, and the FCCA may reopen the matter on the grounds of a breach of commitments or a material change of circumstances — the commitment thus becomes a genuine, monitored obligation.
• Contesting the matter is worth considering in particular where the legal or economic evidence of an infringement is genuinely weak, or where the proposed commitments would be commercially more burdensome than the likely outcome of a contested proceeding. The risk is a formal finding of infringement (section 9), which can serve as a basis for private damages claims, as well as exposure to a fine proposal by the FCCA to the Market Court.

In either case, it is worth remembering that a commitment decision does not bind the FCCA in a corresponding matter against another, later-investigated operator, and it does not remove the possibility that the matter is later reopened.

Section 11 — Withdrawal of the Benefit of a Block Exemption

Section 11 differs from the other provisions discussed here in that it is not connected to the FCCA's infringement procedure at all: it is the national implementing provision for Article 29(2) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003. The EU's block exemption regulations (e.g. the block exemption regulation on vertical agreements) automatically exempt entire categories of agreement from the prohibition in Article 101(1) TFEU throughout the Union. Under section 11, however, the FCCA may withdraw this benefit in the territory of Finland (or in a part of the territory of Finland which has all the characteristics of a distinct geographic market) if an agreement, decision by an association, or concerted practice has effects there incompatible with Article 101(3) TFEU, even though the agreement otherwise satisfies the conditions of the block exemption throughout the EU.

The wording of the provision still refers to Articles 81 and 82 of the EC Treaty (now the TFEU), because this is the Regulation's (EC) No 1/2003's own official title — not a sign that the old article numbering still applies in substance. The provision has not been amended since 2012, and in practice it appears to be an almost unused tool: a targeted search did not find any published FCCA decision in which the power to withdraw under section 11 has actually been used. This cannot be treated as full certainty that it has never been used, but the provision is in any event very narrow in scope and rarely relevant in transactional advice.

Section 45 — Interim Orders

Section 45 is located in Chapter 6 of the Competition Act ("Miscellaneous Provisions") and gives the FCCA the possibility of intervening urgently in a restriction of competition before the main matter (section 9/section 10/a possible fine proposal) has been resolved. This provision, too, was revised by Act 546/2021 as part of the implementation of the ECN+ Directive. It reads in full:

"If it is immediately established that the application or implementation of a restriction of competition may cause serious and irreparable harm to competition, the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority may issue an interim order to terminate the restriction of competition.

An interim order issued by the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority is in force for a fixed period, which may be no more than one year. The Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority may extend the validity of a fixed-term interim order by no more than one year at a time, if an extension is necessary. The Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority must revoke an interim order it has issued immediately once there is no longer any reason for it.

Before the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority issues an interim order, it must give the undertaking or association of undertakings the opportunity to be heard, unless the urgency of the matter or some other special reason requires otherwise."

The threshold is thus two-part and cumulative: the threatened harm must be both serious and irreparable — seriousness or irreparability alone is not sufficient ("and", not "or"). An order may be in force for no more than one year at a time, and the FCCA may extend it by a new decision for one year at a time if an extension is necessary; conversely, the FCCA must revoke the order immediately once there is no longer any basis for it. The undertaking or association of undertakings must, as a starting point, be given the opportunity to be heard before the order is issued, unless the urgency of the matter or some other special reason requires otherwise.

An interim order is intended as an exceptional emergency brake — the corresponding power is, at both EU and Member State level, notoriously one of the least-used tools in competition law, and a targeted search did not find an example of the FCCA actually issuing an interim order. An appeal concerning an interim order follows the general appeal provisions applicable to competition matters; see Appeals in Competition Matters.

See Also

• The FCCA's Investigative Powers and Dawn Raids
• Appeals in Competition Matters
• Cartels and Horizontal Restrictions of Competition

Sources

Lainsäädäntö ja lähteet tarkistettu 6.9.2026.