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Swiss Operator Wins Termination Fee Battle
(10 Mar 2010, BWCS Staff)Swisscom appears to have won its battle against the Swiss Competition Commission, Weko, over allegations of illegal mobile termination fees. Weko had accused Swisscom of keeping its fees too high and had imposed a fine of SFr333 million on the operator. However, three years after the fine was set, the Swiss federal administrative court has overturned the main points of the decision and ruled that the mobile operator will not be fined.
The original ruling had decided that Swisscom, as the dominant operator, had violated its position as defined under the Swiss Cartel Act. This had followed an investigation into the possible abuse of the dominant market positions held by the three mobile phone companies in Switzerland. Weko ruled that Swisscom was dominating the mobile market and had violated its position by charging unreasonably high fees between 1 April 2004 and 31 May 2005.
However, for its part, Swisscom refused to accept the findings and took its appeal to the Federal Administrative Court. The mobile operator argued that it neither dominated the market, nor had it acted improperly. The court has now ruled that while Swisscom did have a dominant market position, it rejected Weko's conclusion that the operator abused that position to charge higher mobile termination fees.
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