Norway: Issued Supreme Court ruling stating that Schibsted's acquisition of Nettbil was not anti-competitive

On 16 February 2023, Norway's Supreme Court overturned the decision made by the Norwegian Competition Authority (NCA) to stop the 2019 acquisition of the online consumer-to-business marketplace platform Nettbil by media conglomerate Schibsted. In the investigation, the NCA found that there was a horizontal overlap in the online marketplace through Schibsted's car sales platform, "Finn.no", and that the acquisition would give incentives for anti-competitive behaviour and ordered Schibsted to divest the acquisition. The NCA's decision was held by the Competition Appeals Board, repealed by the Gulating Court of Appeal, and then reached the Supreme Court after the NCA submitted it for a decision. The Supreme Court concluded that Finn.no's and Nettbil's products do not belong to the same online product market, with significant price and product differentiation, and that the NCA's decision had insufficient evidence proving that the acquisition would "significantly impede effective competition" in line with Section 16 of the Competition Act.