The Netherlands Competition Authority (Dutch: Nederlandse Mededingingsautoriteit, NMa) was the

competition regulator A competition regulator is the institution that oversees the functioning of markets. It identifies and corrects practices causing market impediments and distortions through competition law (also known as antitrust law). In general it is a governm ...

for the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. After a merger with the Consumentenautoriteit and Onafhankelijke Post en Telecommunicatie Autoriteit on 1 April 2013, it became the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (Dutch: Autoriteit Consument en Markt). The Netherlands Competition Authority monitored all Dutch markets, to ensure fair competition. The "Dutch office of Energy Regulation" (''Energiekamer'') was part of the Netherlands Competition Authority and committed to making

energy market An energy market is a type of commodity market on which electricity, heat, and fuel products are traded. Natural gas and electricity are examples of products traded on an energy market. Other energy commodities include: oil, coal, carbon emission ...

s work as effectively as possible.

Tasks

The main goal for the Netherlands Competition Authority was to ensure fair competition between Dutch companies. In order to do so, it focused on 3 main tasks: * To fight

cartel A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collaborate with each other as well as agreeing not to compete with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. A cartel is an organization formed by producers ...

-deals * To prevent the abuse of economic strength, for example in virtual

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...

oligopoly An oligopoly () is a market in which pricing control lies in the hands of a few sellers. As a result of their significant market power, firms in oligopolistic markets can influence prices through manipulating the supply function. Firms in ...

situations * To check on the concentrations and spread of companies

References

Competition regulators Consumer organisations in the Netherlands Regulation in the Netherlands {{netherlands-org-stub

Tasks

See also

References