The Danish Competition Council has approved Danica Pension’s acquisition of sole control of SEB Pensionsforsikring A/S and SEB Administration A/S

Danica is a subsidiary of the insurance company Danica, Skadesforsikringsaktieselskab af 1999 and ultimately of Danske Bank Group. Danica provides pension and life insurance products to companies and their employees as well as to private customers. SEB is a subsidiary of SEB Life and Pension Holding AB, which is part of Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB. SEB also provides pension and life insurance products.

Danica and SEB are thus in the Danish market for pension and life insurance products. The DCCA also considered the following market segments; collective labour market pension and life insurance products, commercial pension and life insurance products provided to companies, and commercial pension and life insurance products provided to private customers.

Mergers with horizontal overlaps may significantly impede effective competition through unilateral effects. The DCCA has carried out extensive investigations, which concluded that Danica and SEB are not extraordinary close competitors, and that no one in the market expects price rises as a consequence of the merger, or that the merger will impede the effective competition significantly. Furthermore, there has been no indication of one of the merging parties being a maverick firm. On the basis of an overall assessment the Danish Competition Council (“DCC”) considered that the merger would not give rise to unilateral effects in neither of the market segments described above.

Moreover the DCC did not find that the merger would cause coordinated effects.

Overall DCC assessed that the merger would not significantly impede effective competition in the Danish market for pension and life insurance products.

On the 30 May 2018 the Danish Competition Counsel approved the merger.