Tasks
The Swedish Competition Authority is Sweden’s administrative authority for competition issues. Our aim is to promote effective competition in private and public activities for the benefit of consumers. We are also the supervisory authority for public procurement. We strive to promote effective public procurement for the benefit of public and market actors. Active, clear and transparent supervision contributes to efficient and correct procurements.
Our vision, which encapsulates both our tasks in the competition area and our public procurement supervision, is “Welfare through well-functioning markets”.
Our tasks in the competition area
Our tasks include implementing enforcement and providing support in the competition area. We implement enforcement in the form of investigations and court processes, as well as the dissemination of knowledge through communicative efforts. We strive to combine enforcement and information dissemination in order to achieve the greatest possible impact.
The Swedish Competition Authority has enforcement responsibility for the Competition Act and Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).
The Competition Act contains three prohibitions:
- Prohibition against anticompetitive cooperation.
- Prohibition against the abuse of a dominant position.
- Possibility of prohibiting anticompetitive public sales activities.
The law also contains rules regarding takeovers.
Our tasks in the competition area include combatting cartels and intervening when private and public actors abuse their dominant position in the market. We also intervene to address anticompetitive public sales activities.
Laws and rules in the competition area
Enforcement in the competition area
Our tasks in the competition area:
- Enforcement work.
- Propose rule changes and other measures to remove obstacles to effective competition.
- Disseminate knowledge about the competition rules.
- Contribute to research in the competition area.
- Participate in international efforts in the competition area.
- Cooperate with other authorities.
We enforce competition rules and supervise the application of procurement legislation and systems of choice. We also conduct tasks arising from the Trading Prohibition Act and the Transparency Act.
Our tasks in the procurement area
The Swedish Competition Authority is the supervisory authority for public procurement. We implement supervision in the form of investigations and court processes, as well as the dissemination of knowledge through communicative efforts. We strive to combine supervision and information dissemination in order to achieve the greatest possible impact.
We strive to promote effective public procurement for the benefit of public and market actors. Active, clear and transparent supervision contributes to efficient and correct procurements.
Laws and rules in the procurement area
Supervision in the procurement area
Our tasks in the procurement area:
- Prioritise supervisory activities and draw attention to rules violations that are of major importance or of fundamental interest.
- Draw attention to obstacles to efficient public procurement and make proposals for regulatory reforms.
- Follow and report on legal developments in public procurement, both nationally and internationally.
- Provide information about public procurement in order to prevent violations of the rules, and strive to ensure the uniform application of Sweden’s national procurement rules.
- Cooperate with the National Agency for Public Procurement and other stakeholders to develop public procurement.
We focus on investigating cases that are of a general interest and that lead to clear results. The aim is to promote effective public procurement for the benefit of public and market actors.
We conduct broad procurement supervision of all violations of the procurement regulations and freedom of choice laws. Among other ways, supervision is implemented through supervisory decisions and applications for procurement fines.
We inform contracting authorities, contracting entities and other interested parties about our supervision of the procurement laws and international developments in the procurement area. Our supervisory decisions also provide concrete guidance for other contracting authorities.
The National Agency for Public Procurement provides support to contracting authorities, entities and suppliers by developing and communicating knowledge, tools and methods for public procurement.
The website of the National Agency for Public Procurement
Our tasks in both the competition and procurement area
We propose rule changes and other measures to remove existing barriers to market access and to enable efficient procurement.
We communicate our decisions and the meaning of the regulations whose application we supervise. We also strive to promote a competitive approach and the uniform application of national procurement rules through the dissemination of knowledge.
We have a special budget that we use to contribute to research in both competition and procurement areas. This research should result in increased knowledge among both our employees and our stakeholders. We have assembled a research council with qualified representatives of universities, other research institutions and authorities.
The task of the research council is to stimulate research on competition and procurement and to participate in the assessment of which research projects should receive support from us. The council is tied to the Swedish Competition Authority.
One of our tasks is to contribute to international development in the areas of competition and procurement. We cooperate with the corresponding authorities in other countries and participate in various networks and international organisations.
We strive for effective cooperation with authorities, county administrative boards and other stakeholders. We discuss our proposals for action with the authorities concerned. In addition, we are tasked with providing the county administrative boards with the documentation they require when considering the competition aspects of various issues.