The competition body NMa has wrongly fined dozens of firms for failing to register their involvement in a takeover, the company court ruled on Monday.

If companies fail to tell the NMa about their involvement, the organisation has fined both seller and buyer. But the company court has now ruled the fines for companies which are selling their shares is wrong.
Under European competition law, takeovers and mergers have to be registered to ensure they will not hinder competition. But under EU law, companies selling their stake in a firm are not fined, and this is now being applied to Dutch law.
The NMa has handed out almost €3m in these sort of fines over the past few years, the Financieele Dagblad says. In one case, the government was fined €800,000 for failing to report it was selling its stake in Fortis Corporate Insurance to British insurance group Amlin.
However, companies which have been wrongly fined are unable to recover the money because they should have registered their objections within six weeks, the paper says.