Broadband, legal battle between Tim and Open Fiber: cross-claim for abuse of dominant position and unfair competition

As the plan for the ultra-broadband builds up delays, Tim e Open Fiber ready to challenge each other in court. The Italian company of ultra-wide band last March he asked € 1.5 billion in damages for allegedly abuse of dominant position. Sources close to Tim find the “arguments” behind the request made to the Milan court “laughable” and let it be known that the former monopolist is in turn preparing lawsuits towards Open Fiber for unfair competition and request for damages of an equivalent amount if not higher. The botta and response between the two companies ditched Tim’s share which left 3.48% on the ground.

As stated in Tim’s financial report on the first quarter, Open Fiber brought Tim to court last March, making a compensation claim of € 1.5 billion for damage caused by an alleged abuse of an exclusive dominant position against Open Fiber. The company is owned equally by Enel – which has received a non-binding offer for its share from Macquarie Infrastructure – e Cassa Depositi e Prestiti disputes the group led by Luigi Gubitosi a series of anti-competitive practices. Among these, having made pre-emptive investments in fiber optic networks FTC in the so-called white areas‘, where network infrastructures are nonexistent, but also have filed pretexts for hinder Infratel competitions, a company that has among its objectives the coverage of areas in digital divide throughout the national territory.

Always according to the accusations of Open Fiber, Tim would have carried out the repricing strumentale of some wholesale services, launched commercial lock-in offers on the retail market e communicated false information to Agcom upon approval of a wholesale offer. Furthermore, Tim allegedly spread rumors about an interest in the acquisition of Open Fiber and implemented one discriminatory policy as regards the conditions of access to Tim’s passive infrastructures.

The Open Fiber court summons appeals to Antitrust ruling A514, which had imposed one fine of 116 million euros to Tim for “anti-competitive strategy”. Already on the occasion of the quarterly report, Tim had declared that he intended to appeal before the takes the Antitrust decision relating to the provision, “referred to widely by the counterparty in the summons”. New sources close to Tim explain that the Antitrust ruling referred to stated that the alleged abuse within the white areas had already ended in August 2018, well before the Antirust decision and, therefore, in a period in which Open Fiber had not yet created any infrastructure to offer to the market in those areas.