In its decision of 30 October 2024, the Market Court imposed a penalty payment of 600,000 euros on Valio. The Market Court agreed with the proposal of the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (FCCA) in finding that Valio had not adhered to its commitment to protect the price information of competing companies. The FCCA proposed a penalty payment of 900,000 euros for Valio’s infringement. This is the first time in Finland that a penalty payment is imposed for breaching the conditions of a merger.
In 2021, the FCCA gave conditional clearance for a concentration in which Valio acquired Heinon Tukku, a foodservice wholesaler. The acquisition could not be approved as such, as Valio would have been provided with information related to the pricing of competing food manufacturers through Heinon Tukku, which would have affected Valio’s incentives in its own pricing. In order to eliminate the competition problem, Valio undertook to protect the confidential information of its competitors so that it would not be passed on within the organisation to the persons responsible for pricing Valio’s products.
Valio informed the FCCA at the end of 2022 of an error in the information system firewall, due to which the staff of Valio Aimo, who handle the sales to foodservice customers, had access to the price information of Valio’s competitors for several months.
In its proposal to the Market Court in December 2023, the FCCA considered that Valio had not complied with the main condition for approving the acquisition, which prevents the transmission of Valio’s competitors’ price information to the persons responsible for the pricing of Valio’s products. The Market Court agreed with the proposal of the FCCA in finding that Valio’s breach was material and that it was a serious competition infringement. However, the Market Court considered that Valio’s infringement was somewhat narrower than the FCCA had proposed, and this was taken into account in the amount of the penalty payment.
"The FCCA is pleased that the Market Court found an infringement and imposed a penalty payment for it. The decision is important for the credibility of the commitments related to conditionally approved mergers. If such commitments are not complied with, the harmful effects of the merger will materialize."
The decision of the Market Court is not final. The FCCA will take a closer look at the Market Court decision and then decide whether to appeal the decision to the Supreme Administrative Court.