The Antitrust has opened a proceeding against Telecom Italia to ascertain possible violations in terms of abuse of a dominant position. According to the Authority, Tim allegedly obstructed the tenders called by Infratel Italia to cover the market failure areas of the national territory with FTTH networks, in order to preserve the monopolistic position historically held in this sector and avoid the entry of new operators competitors.
During the tenders, in fact, Telecom Italia would have announced a change in the investment plans with respect to what was communicated to Infratel itself during the public consultation carried out to identify the areas of market failure. In this way, Telecom would have attempted to question the classification of the areas into which the national territory has been divided, declaring its intention to invest in areas with market failure in any case.
The revision of the investment plan would have been communicated despite the tender procedures prepared for the white areas of the territory were already underway and following the decision of the European Commission to approve the direct intervention measure proposed by the Government. Telecom's strategy to slow down the progress of the tenders would also have been conducted through the proposition of numerous appeals and reports to judicial and administrative authorities. By slowing down the procedures for selecting the entities responsible for building ultra-broadband networks in white areas, Telecom could hinder the development of forms of infrastructural competition and the entry of new competitors.
Furthermore, the company allegedly tried to preemptively secure customers in the new segment of ultra-broadband retail telecommunications services, even with anti-competitive commercial policies (non-replicable prices, lock-in).
The Authority will assess whether the technical and economic conditions of the offers are such as to bind the customer to the Telecom supply contract for a long period (lock-in) and with prices that cannot be replicated by alternative operators. Such conduct could prove to have unduly restricted the residual customer contestability space for competing operators, limiting competition in the market for ultra-broadband retail telecommunications services, precisely at a stage in which vigorous competition would be particularly desirable.
The initiation of the proceeding, specifies the Antitrust, was notified on Tuesday during inspections carried out by the Authority in collaboration with the special Antitrust unit of the Guardia di Finanza.
For his part, Tim points out that "the start of the Antitrust investigation depended on the presentation in recent weeks and in an extremely short period of time of a series of complaints by subjects with an interest in preventing the implementation of the his investment. Tim, as you have demonstrated in the past, is certain that you have acted in compliance with the rules and will demonstrate it in the appropriate forums. Tim trusts that, already in the preliminary investigation phase, the correctness of the company's actions will emerge”.
