In 2023, the Competition Authority focused on the analysis of the consequences of the pharmacy reform. With the reform that came into force in 2020, the right to establish a pharmacy was linked to a restriction of ownership, and general pharmacies previously owned by wholesalers of medicinal products became pharmacies operated by pharmacists.

The Competition Authority prepares monthly overviews of the energy market. These are summaries of electricity and gas price statistics for the past month and the most important events in the electricity and gas market.

An important aspect of the Competition Authority’s work is the analysis of datasets to identify trends and connections. In 2023, two new analysts joined the organisation, and the Data and Economic Analysis Team was created under the Competition Division.

Several analyses were carried out during the year, the largest of which were the analysis of the pharmacy reform and the market analyses of the fuel market and the electric car charging network launched in 2023.

AS Last year, the Competition Authority completed supervisory proceedings regarding RagnSells AS, during which it found that the increase in prices for additional services in the waste collection areas of Pärnu was not justified. As a result, Ragn-Sells AS reduced its prices. More specifically, within the framework of the supervisory proceedings, an additional service was examined, which involved manual transportation (up to 15 meters from the stopping point) of waste bags or up to an 800-litre wheeled containers to the waste collection vehicle.

In 2023, the activities of morgues providing services to hospitals received more attention than usual. In 2023, the Competition Authority terminated two supervisory proceedings against morgues operating at hospitals and issued a recommendation to all Estonian hospitals. In both supervisory proceedings, the issue was the allegedly very high fee for issuing the deceased by the undertakings providing morgue services.

The Competition Authority initiated misdemeanour proceedings against Maxima on 19 September 2023 on the grounds of subsections 1 and 4 of § 4 and subsection 2 of § 5 of the Act on Combating Unfair Trading Practices in the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain in connection with the possible non-compliance of contracts concluded between Maxima and sellers with the regulation of said Act.

On 21 July 2023 the Competition Authority authorised the concentration of AS Maag Grupp and AS HKScan Estonia, AS HKScan Latvia and UAB HKScan Lietuva on the condition that the parties to the concentration perform their obligations. The notice of concentration was submitted to the Competition Authority on 30 January 2022 and on 27 January 2023 under decision No 5-5/2023-004 supplementary concentration proceedings were initiated.

In 2011, Directive 2009/12/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on airport charges was incorporated into the Aviation Act, the aim of which was to establish a general framework regulating airport charges in the European Union. The principles of the Directive that were incorporated into the Aviation Act applied to the airport with the largest number of passenger movements in Estonia – AS Tallinna Lennujaam.

The Competition Authority conducted supervisory proceedings with regard to the extensive power outages in the Elektrilevi network in autumn. The Authority identified that Elektrilevi has a shortage of repair teams eliminating outages, but mostly a lack of resources in the control centre, which results in long call queues that delay the work of repair teams.

The keywords characterising the supervision exercised in 2023 are increased proactivity of the Authority and more active intervention in the focus topics of the respec