The President of the Republic of Finland ratified an amendment (253/2014) to the Finnish Competition Act on 6 February 2015 concerning the right of the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (FCCA) to carry out inspections on businesses that have outsourced their information management to a third party.
In order to monitor compliance with the Finnish Competition Act, the FCCA has the right to carry out inspections in the premises of businesses and to examine their business correspondence as well as any other documents and data that may be relevant. In the case of businesses that have outsourced their information management to a third party, inspectors will, in the future, also have the right to request the necessary information from the third party directly.
The amendment was introduced in order to account for the growing trend of cloud computing, i.e. centralised data storage over the internet. The amendment does not give the FCCA any new powers but it will make inspections quicker and easier and the process more straightforward from the perspective of both the businesses subject to inspections and the businesses that manage their data.
The amendment will enter into force on 1 March 2015.