TELECOMMUNICATIONS : MEETINGS OF FIVE OPERATORS UNDER COMMISSION SCRUTINY.

The European Commission confirmed that it has asked five operators (Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Telefonica, Vodafone and Telecom Italia, as well as the association of mobile operators and related companies - GSMA) for information on the way in which the standardisation of future services in the field of mobile telephony is taking place. The five big players had been meeting for two years to discuss the stakes in the sector and, in particular, questions regarding standardisation. These practices could be anti-competitive if they do not respect transparent and open standardisation proceedings.

"The Commission has not opened formal proceedings. These fact-finding steps do not mean that we have competition concerns at this stage, nor do they prejudge the follow-up," theCommission stated.

However, these practices could go against provisions on the standardisation agreements (Chapter 7) laid out in the guidelines on the applicability of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) with horizontal cooperation agreements adopted in January 2011 (201/C11/01). Indeed, these guidelines lay out that standardisation must be open, non-discriminatory and transparent. More specifically: "If participation in the standard-setting process is open in the sense that it allows all competitorsa(and/or stakeholders) in the market affected by the standard to take part in choosing and elaboratingathe standard, this will...

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