• Poland: The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) opens Proceedings against Mobile Telephony Operators for alleged Abuse of Collective Dominant Position

On 18 March 2013, the President of the Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) opened antimonopoly proceedings against Polkomtel (the owner of, among others, Plus), Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa (including T-Mobile and Heyah) and Polska Telefonia Komórkowa Centertel (including Orange) to verify whether they have abused their collective dominant position on the domestic market for mobile telephony.

The proceedings were instituted upon information received from the President of the Office of Electronic Communications and another network operator (Play). According to this information, the price for one minute of connection charged to Play when using the networks of the above mentioned operators was much higher than the prices charged to the remaining operators (e.g. the tariff of one operator stipulated that the cost of a connection to a number within the Play network amounted to PLN 0.75, while the connection to other operators amounted only to PLN 0.29).

In the course of explanatory proceedings (proceedings held before the institution of antimonopoly proceedings to determine whether an infringement of competition law has been taking place, which would justify the institution of antimonopoly proceedings), UOKiK examined both the tariffs for individual clients and the wholesale costs incurred by the network operators when starting the connection within their own network and finishing it in the targeted network. This initial analysis of UOKiK showed that the actual costs borne by the operators do not provide sufficient grounds for such a diversity of rates as was applied to the Play network. UOKiK suspects that these practices may be restricting competition on the mobile telephony market by hampering the operations of entities other than the three market leaders.

The proceedings will be conducted on the basis of national provisions as well as EU rules. UOKiK will examine whether the undertakings’ practice might have affected the trade between the EU Member States by for example foreclosing entry to the Polish market for other telecommunications operators.

See press release (in English)

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