Volatile markets call for improved economic resilience
The markets that the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) oversees have been dramatically impacted recently by major, sudden events: the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of climate change, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and, on a completely different scale, the Suez Canal blockage caused by a container ship that had ran aground. All of these events have resulted in market disruptions across the globe. These disruptions affect people and businesses severely, especially people and businesses in financially vulnerable positions. Volatile markets call for improved economic resilience. Also, rapidly changing circumstances call for a more agile form of oversight, as the ACM has stated in its 2021 Annual Report.
Martijn Snoep, Chairman of the Board of ACM, comments: ”The enormous market disruptions of the past few years have shown that our economic resilience must be improved. We can do so, for example, by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, and by maintaining strategic reserves and surplus capacity. The economic resilience of people and businesses will become a major topic over the next few years. That shift means that we should adjust our role as regulator accordingly, and that we should become a more agile regulator. Markets should work for people and businesses at all times, even in times of crisis.”
What did ACM accomplish in 2021?
In 2021, ACM focused on its key priorities, as set out in its Agenda: the digital economy, the energy transition, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The digital economy
ACM seeks to protect people and businesses against abuse of dominance and misleading practices in the digital economy. In 2021, ACM imposed an order subject to periodic penalty payments on Apple, urging it to stop using unfair conditions in its App Store. ACM took action against various types of misleading practices, for example, against the use of fake likes. By joining forces with other regulators, ACM seeks to deal with problems in the digital economy more effectively.
The energy transition
In order to spread out the costs of the energy transition more fairly among generations, and to stimulate investments in sustainability, ACM has, for example, set the tariffs of system operators so that they are able to include part of the costs of the energy transition in their tariffs. ACM has drawn up guidelines regarding sustainability claims, and is currently conducting an investigation into misleading sustainability claims in three different sectors. In addition, ACM offers businesses that wish to collaborate in order to realize sustainability objectives more latitude to do so. The second half of 2021 was marked by volatility on the energy market, where several suppliers went bankrupt as a result of the high energy prices.
The effects of the pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has had major effects on people and businesses in the health care sector and beyond. ACM clarified what types of collaborations between hospitals and health insurers were allowed. In addition, ACM saw that the payout of unredeemed vouchers for tour packages was picking up steam in 2021 in part because of ACM’s oversight efforts.
Other cases
ACM protected consumers by dealing with prohibited price coordination involving television sets. In addition, ACM fined a pharmaceutical company for charging excessive prices. And ACM blocked two mergers in the health care sector in order to prevent dominant positions from emerging, and conditionally cleared four other mergers. Consumer education was provided by ACM’s consumer information portal ACM ConsuWijzer, which ran various awareness campaigns, such as a nationwide campaign urging consumers to check an online store before placing an order there.
Other key figures:
- Consumers are able to download 110 different sample letters from ACM ConsuWijzer. Over 156,000 letters were downloaded in 2021;
- The three awareness campaigns targeting online consumers (‘You have more rights than you think’, ‘Telemarketing’ and ‘Check before you buy’) had a combined total of 55 million views;
- ACM had approximately 80,000 interactions with consumers and businesses in which it provided information;
- In 2021, ACM imposed fines totaling 65,718,500 euros;
- The outcome of ACM’s work in 2021 was 525 million euros.