CHAPTER 1
Company profile 
The Danish Competition Authority is an independent authority responsible for matters related to competition, energy regulation, public procurement and state aid. The Authority is the secretariat of the Danish Competition Council and the Danish Energy Regulatory Authority. The Danish Competition Authority performs a number of tasks in co-operation with the Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission. 1.1 Strategy The Danish Competition Authority strives to create an effective market through competition in both the public and private sector. Our mission statement is: The Danish Competition Authority encourages prosperity and innovation through effective competition and effective, transparent markets Our vision is: Consumers should have access to a wide range of goods and services at the lowest possible prices in relation to quality The Authority aims at being one of the most effective, competent and service-minded competition authorities among the OECD countries. In its Globalisation Strategy the Danish Government has set a specific objective for competition in Denmark: Competition in Denmark must converge to the level of the best OECD countries in 2010 The Globalisation Strategy is an ambitious strategy for Denmark to advance in a multitude of fields. The strategy is called “prosperity, innovation and security” and consists of several elements to ensure a higher degree of competition and better access to Danish markets. Among other things the strategy introduces a leniency-programme and focuses on public procurement. As a part of this, Danish local and regional authorities are required to explore the possibilities of public procurement to an even further extended degree than currently. The aim is to increase the number of public procurements carried through by Danish authorities and by this increase the general competitiveness of the Danish markets. As in many other countries and in the EU, the Danish Competition Act is based on the principle of prohibition and includes merger control. The Authority publishes an annual Competition Report (Konkurrenceredegørelse), which measures competition in Denmark. The Competition Report also includes a number of indepth analyses on competitive conditions within different sectors and branches – public as well as private. 1.2 Organization The Authority comprises tree competition units, a unit dealing with legal affairs and economics, a unit dealing with energy regulation, an administration secretariat, and a management secretariat. 
By year-end 2006 the Authority employed 143 persons. 66 worked with competition cases, 37 with energy regulation, 14 with public procurement, state aid and payment card regulation, and 22 worked with administrative tasks, management support and ministry affairs. The board of directors is made up of 4 persons. 1.3 The Competition Council The Danish Competition Council has 18 members including a chairman and a deputy chairman. The Council represents a broad composition of knowledge of public and private enterprise, including legal, economic, financial and consumer-related issues. The Competition Council decides on major cases on the basis of submissions made by the Competition Authority. The Council meets once a month. The Authority is responsible for the day-to-day management on behalf of the Council. The decisions and case administration of the Council and the Authority are not influenced by the Ministry or the Minister and are subject to appeal before the Competition Appeals Tribunal and subsequently to the ordinary courts.
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