The Competition Authority’s work during the coronavirus pandemic
As most others, the Authority has to adapt to the situation caused by the coronavirus crisis.
Our main priority is to avoid that our employees, their families and people we are in contact with are exposed to the infection. By doing so, we contribute to the great voluntary effort that takes place across Norway to reduce the spread of the infection.
We will continue to fulfill our important role of ensuring effective competition in Norwegian markets to the benefit of businesses, consumers and society at large. To handle the current situation the following measures have been implemented:
- Employees are encouraged to work from home. External and internal meetings will mainly be held by way of conference calls or video conferencing. Physical meetings may exceptionally take place at the Authority’s premises.
- Ongoing investigations continue at the outset as normal.
- We will ensure that parties will be informed if the Authority’s case handling for various reasons should be delayed.
- The Authority has suspended all work-related travel, both domestically and internationally.
- The Authority can be contacted as normal, both in case of tip-offs or if guidance is needed.
- As rapid changes may occur as a result of the corona crisis, our measures may be subject to change on short notice. We therefore invite all stakeholders to regularly consult our website kt.no and to subscribe to our newsletter.
- We also look into how we best can use available personnel to ensure continuity in our case handling. During the crisis we will prioritise cases related to the enforcement of the Competition Act and market surveillance.
Times are challenging, but we will do our best to conduct our work as efficiently as possible. To secure well-functioning markets to the benefit of society is our most important task. That is so during the crisis that we now experience, but is equally true when the crisis is over and we return to a normal way of life. It is important that measures and actions during the crisis do not lead to a reduction in the number of market players and, subsequently, to weaker competition in the longer term.
Updated: 29.06.2021