{"id":1186,"date":"2019-04-26T13:28:08","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T11:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/haavind.local\/en\/2019\/04\/26\/ownership-restrictions-banks-insurance-threat\/"},"modified":"2022-07-21T12:51:15","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T12:51:15","slug":"ownership-restrictions-banks-insurance-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haavind.stage01.dekodes.no\/en\/ownership-restrictions-banks-insurance-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"Ownership restrictions in Norwegian banks and insurance companies under threat"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<div class=\"template-post alignwide wp-block-dekode-hero\">\n\t\t<div class=\"hero__inner\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"hero__inner_blocks\">\n\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"wp-block-post-title\">Ownership restrictions in Norwegian banks and insurance companies under threat<\/h1>\n\n<p>EFTA Surveillance Authority has confirmed its opinion that the Norwegian ownership restrictions is a breach of fundamental EU rights, the freedom of establishment and free movement of capital. The Norwegian government has until mid-June 2019 to adjust current legislation and practice, or face legal action.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"post-meta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"info-small\">26 April, 2019 \u00b7 3 min. reading time<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\n<p>EFTA Surveillance Authority has confirmed its opinion that the Norwegian ownership restrictions is a breach of fundamental EU rights, the freedom of establishment and free movement of capital. The Norwegian government has until mid-June 2019 to adjust current legislation and practice, or face legal action.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>In a letter dated 10 April 2019 ESA has confirmed its opinion that the current wording and practice under the Financial Undertakings Act requiring (i) any new bank or insurance company to facilitate that new investors are given 75% of the capital, and (ii) no shareholder of a bank of insurance company may hold more than 20-25% of shares in such companies, constitute breach of Article 31 (freedom of establishment) and article 40 (free movement of capital) of the EEA Agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read the \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.eftasurv.int\/da\/DocumentDirectAction\/outputDocument?docId=4867\">Letter of formal notice to Norway concerning the authorisation of financial undertakings in Norway<\/a>\u201c.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1810\" src=\"https:\/\/haavind.stage01.dekodes.no\/content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-bank-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2089\" title=\"the-bank\" srcset=\"https:\/\/haavind.stage01.dekodes.no\/content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-bank-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/haavind.stage01.dekodes.no\/content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-bank-300x212.jpg 300w, https:\/\/haavind.stage01.dekodes.no\/content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-bank-1024x724.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/haavind.stage01.dekodes.no\/content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-bank-768x543.jpg 768w, https:\/\/haavind.stage01.dekodes.no\/content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-bank-1536x1086.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/haavind.stage01.dekodes.no\/content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/06\/the-bank-2048x1448.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>It should be noted that ESA as early as 2001 concluded that the statutory 10% limit for non-licensable acquisitions of banks and insurance companies in Norway constituted a breach of the EEA Agreement. See the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eftasurv.int\/press--publications\/press-releases\/internal-market\/nr\/597\">press release from the EFTA Surveillance Authority<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In essence, ESA argue that the EU-based suitability assessment may not be used as an argument for having limits that cannot be construed as being based on suitability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Norwegian government has two months to respond in order to avoid ESA bringing the matter before the EFTA Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EFTA Surveillance Authority has confirmed its opinion that the Norwegian ownership restrictions is a breach of fundamental EU rights, the freedom of establishment and free movement of capital. The Norwegian government has until mid-June 2019 to adjust current legislation and practice, or face legal action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"sector":[5],"speciality":[14],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.2 (Yoast SEO v24.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ownership restrictions in Norwegian banks and insurance companies under threat - Haavind EN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/haavind.stage01.dekodes.no\/en\/ownership-restrictions-banks-insurance-threat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ownership restrictions in Norwegian banks and insurance companies under threat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"EFTA Surveillance Authority has confirmed its opinion that the Norwegian ownership restrictions is a breach of fundamental EU rights, the freedom of establishment and free movement of capital. 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