Teller's exclusivity clauses: Announcement of Competition Council decision

By assistant attorney Adrian Kielberg

From 2012 to 2016, Teller, the former subsidiary of Nets, offered its largest customers various types of loyalty discounts and exclusivity clauses. The Competition Council found that these practices constituted abuse of Teller’s dominant position, being intended to tie the customers to Teller.

As an example, Teller stipulated in its payment processing agreement that all card transactions that were covered by the agreement were to be handled by Teller. Otherwise, the customer would not be entitled to the agreed price. Also, it was a condition that Teller handled a certain number of each customer’s transactions or cards. Finally, customers were offered discounts only if they purchased a minimum number of services from Teller.

The Competition Council found that these practices had contributed to foreclosing the market, thus making it more difficult for competitors to gain market shares. The Council found it important that Teller and Nets together held a dominant position in the relevant period, and that it was already difficult for new players to enter the market.

Read our news article on the Council’s decision.

The Competition Council’s decision has now been published in a draft version. For this purpose, the Competition and Consumer Authority and Teller disagree, however, as to which information is to be regarded as confidential, and this information (market shares, number of agreementsk, agreed thresholds, etc.) has therefore been left out. Teller has brought the confidentiality issue before the Maritime and Commercial High Court, following the Competition Council’s finding in favour of the Authority.