German incumbent Deutsche Telekom has seen its appeal against a E12.6m fine for anticompetitive behaviour overturned by the European Court of Justice.
The court ruled that the European Commission was right to impose a fine on Deutsche Telekom after it…
German incumbent Deutsche Telekom has seen its appeal against a E12.6m fine for anticompetitive behaviour overturned by the European Court of Justice.
The court ruled that the European Commission was right to impose a fine on Deutsche Telekom after it overcharged rivals for access to its local phone network between 1998 and 2003. The regulator said that the fee structure was deterring other companies from entering the market.
The company first applied to a lower European court, which backed the Commission’s decision in 2008, and later to the European Court of Justice.
“We acknowledge the ruling of the European Court of Justice and will analyze the exact grounds for the ruling over the next few days. However, as things currently stand, the impact of this ruling will be limited, as it only pertains to the period from 1998 to 2003 (we had leased 1.3 million subscriber lines in 2003; by comparison, the figure for 2009 was 9.2 million according to the annual report of the Federal Network Agency),” wrote Deutsche Telekom in an email to TelecomFinance. “We had increased the prices for analog lines in 2003, with the result that we have not been accused of squeezing prices during the years that followed.”
