Cellcos cleared of collusion by competition authority

Croatia’s Agency for the Protection of Competition (Agencija za Zastitu Trzisnog Natjecanja, AZTN) has found ‘insufficient’ evidence that the country’s three mobile network operators T-Hrvatski Telekom, VIPnet and Tele2 distorted competition when they simultaneously introduced new voice call billing policies in October 2009. Wrapping up an inquiry launched in late 2011, the AZTN concluded there was no ‘direct’ evidence to support allegations that the three cellcos coordinated their actions in response to the special 6% mobile tax which was introduced in August 2009 (and was finally scrapped in July 2012) when they replaced 15-second units of voice call billing with a 60-second charge for the first minute of each call, regardless of its duration, followed by one-second or 15-second billing units depending on the user’s tariff.