Federal Act
on Cartels and other
Restraints of Competition
(Cartel Act, CartA)

¹ Con­cen­tra­tions that have to be no­ti­fied shall be in­vest­ig­ated by the Com­pet­i­tion Com­mis­sion if a pre­lim­in­ary as­sess­ment (Art. 32 para. 1) re­veals that they cre­ate or strengthen a dom­in­ant po­s­i­tion.

² The Com­pet­i­tion Com­mis­sion may pro­hib­it a con­cen­tra­tion or au­thor­ise it sub­ject to con­di­tions and ob­lig­a­tions if the in­vest­ig­a­tion in­dic­ates that the con­cen­tra­tion:

a.

cre­ates or strengthens a dom­in­ant po­s­i­tion li­able to elim­in­ate ef­fect­ive com­pet­i­tion; and

b.

does not im­prove the con­di­tions of com­pet­i­tion in an­oth­er mar­ket such that the harm­ful ef­fects of the dom­in­ant po­s­i­tion can be out­weighed.

³ If a con­cen­tra­tion of banks with­in the mean­ing of the Bank­ing Act¹⁹ is deemed ne­ces­sary by the Swiss Fin­an­cial Mar­ket Su­per­vis­ory Au­thor­ity (FINMA) for reas­ons re­lated to cred­it­or pro­tec­tion, the in­terests of cred­it­ors may be giv­en pri­or­ity. In these cases, FINMA takes the place of the Com­pet­i­tion Com­mis­sion, which it shall in­vite to sub­mit an opin­ion.²⁰

⁴ In as­sess­ing the ef­fects of a con­cen­tra­tion on the ef­fect­ive­ness of com­pet­i­tion, the Com­pet­i­tion Com­mis­sion also takes ac­count of any mar­ket de­vel­op­ments and the po­s­i­tion of the un­der­tak­ings in re­la­tion to in­ter­na­tion­al com­pet­i­tion.