Antitrust to hear cases against national roaming on Sep 26–29

MOSCOW, Aug 8 (PRIME) -- The Federal Antimonopoly Service will hear cases against monopolistically high prices for national roaming of four Russia’s largest mobile operators – MTS, MegaFon, VimpelCom, and T2 RTK Holding –from September 26 through September 29, the service said in a statement on Tuesday.

“On August 3, 2017, the service launched cases against each of the so-called big four operators due to the signs of violations of competition law’s article 10, part 1, point 1. The signs of violations include setting and keeping monopolistically high prices – tariffs – for connection services in national roaming and because of signing of national inter-operator roaming agreements in Russia,” the service said.

The commission will hear the case against VimpelCom, operating under the Beeline brand, and against MegaFon on September 26, the case against MTS on September 28, and the case against T2 RTK Holding, working under the Tele2 brand, on September 29.

On July 17, the antimonopoly service warned the four operators of the need to eliminate what it said is groundless difference in tariffs in a home region and other regions. The operators were to revise tariffs within 14 days and notify subscribers of changes 10 days in advance. Yelena Zayeva, director of the antitrust service’s connection and IT regulation department, told PRIME that if the companies fail to comply with the requirement, they may be forced to return the unfair income.

On July 31, Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service Anatoly Golomolzin said that all types of roaming will be cancelled in Russia until January 2018.

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