Eimskip‘s deadline to submit arguments, documents and information regarding „statement of objections 1“, which the Company received from the Icelandic Competition Authority on 6 June last year, expires today. The statement of objections 1 „contains the preliminary assessment of the Icelandic Competition Authority on the case and those incidents that have been investigated furthest. The authority is of the opinion that at this stage it is possible to address those incidents.” In the statement of objections 1 the authority stated that another document, statement of objections 2, would be sent to the Company “as soon as possible” where other incidents of the case would be addressed.
With reference to Art. 17 of the rules of procedure of the Icelandic Competition Authority, and as the Company will receive a second statement of objections, addressing further the same case merits for the same period, it is the Company‘s opinion that it has the right to not respond to the first statement until the second one has been received. That is also in line with the purpose of a statement of objections, which is made in order to facilitate the exercise by a party of its right of protest.
As a result Eimskip informed the Icelandic Competition Authority today that the Company will not submit its arguments to statement of objections 1, as was previously planned, until statement of objections 2 has been received. The Company does not have information on when that will happen. The Icelandic Competition Authority has informed the Company that it cannot state when statement of objections 2 will be issued, almost one year after statement of objections 1 was issued and more than five and a half year from the dawn raid.