Call for comments on the draft measure of general nature A/3/xx.2022-x - analysis of wholesale market of access to mobile services

According to Section 51(1) and Section 131(5) of the Electronic Communications Act, CTU published a new draft measure of general nature A/3/xx.2022-x - analysis of wholesale market of access to mobile services, with the aim to impose temporary measures necessary to remedy a market failure.

The reason for preparing this new analysis with the aim to issue the relevant measure is that in order to protect competition and to protect end-users on this market it is necessary to introduce temporary measures to prevent further distortion of competition, and in particular to prevent certain competitors from being squeezed out of the retail market by imposing unfair contractual terms and conditions on this wholesale market to the detriment of end-users in the retail market.

Comments to the draft may be sent within 5 days from the date of the publication of this invitation to public consultation, i.e. by 8 March 2022.

CTU decided to shorten the standard consultation period in accordance with Section 130(6) of the Act, because in a view of the identified market situation there is an urgent need to impose temporary measures to protect competition and users, and this is an exceptional circumstance where there is a risk of delay in the timely application of a temporary remedy by CTU. Conversely, maintaining the normal 30-day time limit would create a risk to the interim remedy under consideration, which could not be put into effect within the time limits required by law before the risk of termination of wholesale contracts as identified in the analysis is realised.

At the same time, CTU notes that the addressees of the proposed temporary remedies will have the opportunity to comment on the proposals in the administrative proceedings that would follow the issuance of the analysis in the form of a measure of general nature, if the proposed remedies are adopted. 

CTU concludes that the shortening of the comment period does not unduly impair the rights of the parties concerned, in particular in view of the fact that the analysis of the relevant market follows the analysis of the same market that the CTU has carried out and consulted on in recent months, not only at national but also at European level, in which a number of interested parties have participated. The analysis presented here with the proposal for temporary measures preferably changes the proposed temporary measures.

The original deadline for the public consultation set until 8 March 2022 has been extended by the CTU until 18 March 2022, in view of the fact that some of the stakeholders concerned, according to information available to the CTU, have had to allocate a significant part of their staff to the implementation of initiatives to support Ukrainian citizens following the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation troops in the last few days. The CTU has therefore extended the deadline for comments by a further 8 working days to allow sufficient time for these stakeholders to submit any comments they may have on the consulted draft.

čj. ČTÚ-9 996/2022-611
Department of economic regulation

Discussion is closed.

Comments, opinions and views submitted by stakeholders according to Section 6 Paragraph 2 of the Public Consulatations Rules:

All comments, opinions and views submitted by stakeholders are available here.

The opinion of the Office for the Protection od Competition to the draft measure of general nature.