Intermediary of insurance medical advice fined and prohibited from applying exclusivity agreements

Mavera AB provides insurance medical assessments carried out by specialised advisers. Mavera’s clients include, for example, insurance companies, claims management companies and public authorities. The purpose of obtaining an insurance medical assessment may include determining whether personal injuries are covered by an insurance policy. The insurance medical advisers are doctors active in various medical specialist fields. The Swedish Competition Authority finds that Mavera has held a dominant position on the market for the intermediation of insurance medical advisory services since at least 2020.

For several years, Mavera was the sole provider of such services in Sweden. When a competing service was introduced in 2020, Mavera responded by introducing provisions in its contracts with insurance medical advisers that prevented the advisers from accepting assignments from the company’s competitors. According to the Authority’s investigation, these exclusivity clauses have hindered market entry and expansion in a manner constituting an abuse of Mavera’s dominant position.

Within several medical specialist fields, Mavera has exclusivity agreements with all, or almost all, available advisers. This means that competitors are unable to engage these insurance medical advisers and therefore risk of being excluded from the market. The conduct may also make it more difficult for new operators to enter and compete effectively in the market.

“Where a company holding a dominant position on the market uses exclusive supply agreements, this may lead to an unlawful restriction of competition. This constitutes a serious infringement of competition law, and in this case we have chosen to impose both an administrative fine and an order to bring the anticompetitive conduct to an end,” says Marie Östman, Director General of the Swedish Competition Authority.

The Swedish Competition Authority has today decided that Mavera is to pay a fine of SEK 14.3 million. As Mavera continues to apply the exclusivity clauses, the Authority also orders the company to cease this conduct. The order is subject to a conditional fine for non-compliance of SEK 30 million.

The decision of the Swedish Competition Authority may be appealed to the Swedish Patent and Market Court.

Malin Vässblad, Competition Counsel, +46 8 700 15 36,
malin.vassblad@kkv.se

Marie Strömberg Lindvall, Press Officer, +46 8 700 15 92,
marie.stromberglindvall@kkv.se

Read the decision (in Swedish)

English summary of the decision