Summary of Commission Decision of 14 April 2010 relating to a proceeding under Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement (Case COMP/39.351 — Swedish Interconnectors)  (Text with EEA relevance )
Date: 2010-04-14
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: Sweden, dominant position, economic concentration, electrical energy, energy transport, merger control








C_2010142EN.01002801.xml










1.6.2010   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 142/28





Summary of Commission Decision
of 14 April 2010
relating to a proceeding under Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement
(Case COMP/39.351 — Swedish Interconnectors)
(Only the English text is authentic)
(Text with EEA relevance)
2010/C 142/08

On 14 April 2010, the Commission adopted a decision relating to a proceeding under Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). In accordance with the provisions of Article 30 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003
 (1), the Commission herewith publishes the names of the parties and the main content of the decision, including any penalties imposed, having regard to the legitimate interest of undertakings in the protection of their business secrets. A non-confidential version of the decision is available on the Directorate-General for Competition's website at the following address:


http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/cases/

1.   INTRODUCTION







(1)


This Decision is addressed to Svenska Kraftnät (hereinafter: ‘SvK’). It makes binding on the undertaking commitments that SvK offered in order to address the competition concerns arising from investigations of the Commission in the Swedish electricity transmission market.




2.   PROCEDURE







(2)


On 1 April 2009, the Commission opened proceedings with a view to adopting a decision under Chapter III of Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 and adopted on 25 June 2009 a Preliminary Assessment as referred to in Article 9(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 which set out the Commission’s competition concerns. On 4 September 2009, SvK submitted commitments to the Commission in response to the Preliminary Assessment. On 6 October 2009, a notice (2) was published in the Official Journal of the European Union pursuant to Article 27(4) of Regulation (EC) No 1/2003, summarising the case and the commitments and inviting interested third parties to give their observations on the commitments within one month following publication. On 26 January 2010, SvK submitted an amended proposal for commitments taking into account relevant comments received from third parties. The Advisory Committee on Restrictive Practices and Dominant Positions issued a favourable opinion on 15 March 2010. The Hearing Officer provided a favourable opinion on the proceedings in his final report of 25 March 2010.




3.   THE CONCERNS IDENTIFIED IN THE PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT







(3)


In a preliminary assessment of 25 June 2009 the Commission raised competition concerns that SvK may have abused its dominant position on the Swedish electricity transmission market. SvK may have curtailed export capacity on the Swedish interconnectors when it anticipated internal congestion within the Swedish transmission system, thereby discriminating between different network users and segmenting the internal market.




4.   THE COMMITMENTS







(4)


SvK made commitments to meet the Commission's competition concerns in the Swedish transmission market. First, SvK will subdivide the Swedish transmission system into two or more bidding zones and operate the Swedish transmission system on this basis by 1 November 2011 at the latest. The configuration of the bidding zones will be flexible enough so that it can be modified to adapt to foreseen and unforeseen changes in the future flow patterns on the Swedish transmission system. From the date the bidding zones are operative, SvK will manage congestion in the Swedish transmission system without limiting trading capacity on interconnectors. The only exception to this principle is one section in the network in Sweden, the so-called West-Coast-Corridor. In this section there are insufficient suitable generation resources to sustain a separate bidding zone. Secondly, in the West-Coast-Corridor SvK commits to reinforce the network by building and operating a new 400 kV transmission line by 30 November 2011. Thirdly, between the date of the notification of the commitment decision and the date on which the bidding zones become operative, SvK will increase the use of counter-trade in order to reduce interconnector curtailments due to internal congestion.










(5)


The commitments made by SvK are suitable remedies to accommodate the Commission's concerns. The subdivision of the network in Sweden addresses the concern in that it removes the need to curtail available interconnector capacity due to internal congestion on the identified bottlenecks in the network in Sweden, with the exception of the West-Coast-Corridor. As regards the latter a new 400 kV line, which SvK commits to build and operate by 30 November 2011 at the latest, near to Gothenburg in western Sweden will be sufficient to relieve the transmission bottleneck on the West-Coast-Corridor. The remedies are neither disproportionate for SvK nor for third parties.




5.   CONCLUSION







(6)


The Decision makes the commitments binding for 10 years from the notification. The Decision finds that there are no longer grounds for action on the part of the Commission and that, without prejudice to Article 9(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1/2003, the proceedings in this case should therefore be brought to an end.






(1)  OJ L 1, 4.1.2003, p. 1.

(2)  OJ C 239, 6.10.2009, p. 9.