Judgment of the Court Third Chamber of 25 March 2021, Slovak Telekom v Commission, Case C-165/19 P

• Date: 25 March 2021
• Year: 2021

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VII. COMPETITION

1. ABUSE OF DOMINANT POSITION

Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 25 March 2021, Deutsche

Telekom v Commission, Case C-152/19 P

Link to the complete text of the judgment

Appeal – Competition – Article 102 TFEU – Abuse of dominant position – Slo vak market for broadband

internet access services – Regulatory obligation on the part of operators with significant market power to

grant access to the local loop – Conditions laid down by the incumbent operator for unbundled access by

other operators to the local loop – Indispensability of the access – Imputability of a subsidiary’s conduct to

the parent company – Rights of the defence

and

Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 25 March 2021, Slovak Telekom v Commission,

Case C-165/19 P

Link to the complete text of the judgment

Appeal – Competition – Article 102 TFEU – Abuse of dominant position – Slo vak market for broadband

internet access services – Regulatory obligation on the part of operators with significant market power to

grant access to the local loop – Conditions la id down by the incumbent operator for unbundled access by

other operators to the local loop – Indispensability of the access – Margin squeeze – Costs – Competitor

at least as efficient as the dominant undertaking – Rights of the defence

Slovak Telekom a.s. (‘ST’) offers, in its capacity as the incumbent telecommunications operator in

Slovakia, broadband services on its fixed copper and fibre optic networks. ST’s networks include also

the ‘local loop’, namely, the physical lines which connect the subscriber’s telephone jack with the main

distribution frame of the fixed telephone network.

Following an analysis of its domestic market, the Slovak national regulatory authority for

telecommunications adopted, on 8 March 2005, a decision designating ST as an operator with

significant market power on the wholesale market for unbundled access to the local loop.

Consequently, ST was obliged, under the EU regulatory framework,

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to grant alternative operators

access to the local loop owned by it, thus allowing new entrants to use that infrastructure with a view

to offering their own services to end users.

On 15 October 2014, the Commission adopted a decision in which it found that ST, and its parent

company Deutsche Telekom AG (‘DT’), had abused its dominant position on the Slovak market for

broadband internet services, by limiting the access of alternative operators to its local loop between

2005 and 2010 (‘the decision at issue’). The Commission found, more specifically, that ST, and DT, had

infringed Article 102 TFEU by setting unfair terms and conditions in its reference offer concerning

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This includes Regulation (EC) No 2887/2000 of the European Parliame nt and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on unbundled access to the

local loop (OJ 2000 L 336, p. 4) and Directive 2002/21/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 March 2002 on a common

regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services (OJ 200 2 L 108, p. 33).