Competition Council fines Orange Romania for ”discriminatory treatment”

Newsroom 21/12/2018 | 10:34

The Competition Council has finalized an investigation opened in 2016 against Orange Romania for possible “discriminatory treatment” in relation to SMS service providers and SMS ads with a fine of over 1 percent of the company’s turnover – over EUR 10 million – for “abuse of a dominant position”, according to Ziarul Financiar.

“The Competition Council finalized the investigation, and after hearing all the companies involved in the file, the plenum of the authority decided to sanction Orange Romania for abuse of a dominant position with a fine of just over 1 percent of the turnover,” one of ZF sources said.

Orange representatives have said that they not want to comment on the situation.

The Competition Council announced in April 2016 that it had launched an investigation into “a possible discriminatory treatment by Orange in relation to active companies in the short message service via mobile phone, respectively in the market for short messages by mobile phone in Romania”.

CC also carried out unannounced inspections during the investigation, according to the data communicated at the time by the institution.