TELEPHONES: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO POSSIBLE ABUSE OF DOMINANT POSITION BY TELECOM

Procedure follows complaint by Fastweb. Violation report alleges Telecom is trying to exclude competitors from the tenders for Consip and Enel telephone services by refusing to share information that is essential for fine-tuning their proposals

On 13th May 2010, the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato decided to launch an investigation to determine whether Telecom Italia abused the dominant nature of its position relative to competing operators. More specifically, the Antitrust Authority will need to determine whether or not this company refused to provide its ‘competitors’ (but not its own commercial divisions) with the information and wholesale services needed to formulate competitive technical and economic offers for non-residential customers.
The investigation was launched following the complaints received from Fastweb, which claims that Telecom Italia exploited its status as a vertically integrated operator in order to exclude Fastweb from the Consip and Enel tenders for fixed-line telephone services and IP connectivity. In specific, Telecom refused to supply technical-economic information that Fastweb deemed necessary for formulating its own offers.
From the operators' perspective, the Consip and Enel tenders have significant strategic value as well as noteworthy significance in terms of total value (respective upset prices of 1.3 billion and 240 million euro). Winning such large and long-term contracts, in fact, provides alternative operators with access to the large-customer infrastructural investments needed to expand the geographic dimension of their competitive capacities. It also reduces the time required to reach customer thresholds that are sufficient to support the economies of scale required to compete effectively with Telecom.


Rome - May 18th, 2010