Record 63m-euro fine for Orange and Vodafone

Orange and Vodafone, the biggest mobile phone operators on the Romanian market, were fined 63 million euros by the Competition Council for abuse of dominant position, this being the biggest fine ever levied by the institution. Representatives of the two operators announced they would challenge the decision of the Competition Council, which they deem unfounded, in a court of law.
“Orange was fined 34.8 million euros and Vodafone 28.3 million euros, amounting to just over 3% of the operators’ 2010 turnover,” said Bogdan Chirițoiu, chairman of the Competition Council.
The fines were imposed following a complaint filed by fixed telephony operator Netmaster Communications, according to which Orange and Vodafone had blocked its access to the two networks. This precluded Netmaster clients from having phone conversations with Orange and Vodafone users. Netmaster clients received a code that had to be dialled before any phone number, recognised by the network of the other operators, and redirected to the Netmaster network.
The two operators also charged to Netmaster an interconnection fee of 0.15-0.18 dollars per minute for international calls, higher than the 0.10-dollar maximum charge set by the communications regulatory authority.