Danish pension company, PKA, has been acquitted in a long-running case where it was accused of breaching the country’s competition law.

The ruling took place in a district court in Lyngby in the northern suburbs of Copenhagen. The case dates back to 2018 when the Danish watchdog Konkurrence- og Forbrugerstyrelsen reported PKA and pension administration company, Danica Pension to the financial crimes police, SØIK, for collaborating on a tender for a Danish grocery group’s pension scheme.

The parties, which all pleaded not guilty, were indicted for infringement of competition law committed in the period from mid-March 2017 to March 2018. PKA+ Pension Forsikringsselskab had made a joint offer with Danica Pension for a mandate of the pension scheme in the then Dansk Supermarked, now known as Salling Group. The agreement with the scheme included approx. 2,500 managers and 16,000 contractual employees.

PKA said the purpose was to provide both Dansk Supermarked's managers and the collective bargaining employees with an attractive pension product that suited each of their needs and at a competitive price.

In today’s ruling, 11 December, the court “did not find it proven that the two pension companies were current or potential competitors in relation to the specific offer from the grocery group, just as the court did not find it proven that the two pension companies had agreed on the division of markets or customers and coordination of bids, which directly or indirectly aimed to limit competition in connection with the grocery group's offer of a company pension agreement in 2018”.

“On that basis, the court concluded that the pension company, the pension administration company and the two senior employees should be acquitted,” the judgment stated.

PKA managing director, Jon Johnsen, commented: "We are happy that the district court has reached the same conclusion as us, namely that we have done nothing wrong and that the offer was within the framework of the law. We have never had a desire to limit competition in the pension market. On the contrary, we wanted to give the employees of the former Dansk Supermarked a competitive alternative to the pension scheme they already had."

Johnsen hopes that the district court's verdict can put an end to the long-running case.

"We have waited more than five long years to get the court's word that we have not broken the law. Now we hope that we can put the case behind us and use our energy on what we do best, namely providing good pensions to our members.”

The two personal defendants in the case have also both been acquitted.

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