Issue #1196 (62), Friday, August 18, 2006

BUSINESS

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Mobile Antitrust Case Started

By Lyubov Pronina

Bloomberg

MOSCOW— Russian antitrust authorities began a case against the country’s top three mobile-phone companies including Mobile TeleSystems, for setting tariffs between themselves at a lower rate than for other competitors.

The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service has started the case after Mobile Telesystems, VimpelCom and MegaFon, the country’s three largest operators, set the tariff to terminate a call between them at 0.95 ruble ($0.04) and at 1.1 rubles for other operators, the service said in a statement posted on its web site Thursday. The watchdog will hear the case on Sept. 28.

“If they are found to be violating legislation they will be obliged to eliminate this violation,’’ Yelena Nagaichuk, spokeswoman for the Anti-Monopoly Service said in a telephone interview Thursday.

The “Big Three” companies together operate 86 percent of cellular phones in Russia, a country of 143 million people, where mobile-phone penetration reached 98.5 percent last month.

The lower interconnection tariff between the three companies will make smaller regional operators review their pricing policy and give up attractive low tariffs that allow them to be competitive on the market, the service said.

“Regional operators and operators that are entering the market of mobile communication find themselves in an unequal situation compared to federal operators which is unacceptable under requirements of anti-monopoly legislation,” the statement said.

The Anti-Monopoly Service asked MegaFon on Aug. 7 to provide documents and explanation for the difference in tariffs, Marina Belasheva, a spokeswoman for MegaFon, Russia’s third-largest operator, said in a telephone interview Thursday.

“We were expecting their reply and now here’s this news,” she said, adding that there is certain excitement around the tariff as it concerns vast majority of Russians.