After the intervention of the Supreme Court (SC), the Municipal Court in Prague must again discuss the protracted billion-dollar dispute between the companies Volný and O2 Czech Republic. The Volný company complained in the lawsuit that O2 abused its dominant position on the ADSL internet connection market in 2004 and 2010 and squeezed margins. The Volný company estimated the damage in lost profit at four billion crowns. The claim, including accessories, amounts to approximately ten billion crowns today, said Martin Dvořák in a press release today on behalf of Free Board member Martin Dvořák.
The municipal court initially rejected the claim, and the high court also ruled in the same way on appeal. Now, however, NS granted Volný’s appeal and ordered the municipal court to reopen the dispute. The decision of the highest instance is temporarily made available on the official board.
According to NS, the legal assessment of the question of whether O2 could have abused its dominant position in the disputed period in the form of margin compression is incomplete and therefore incorrect. The municipal court must deal with the issue again, taking into account European jurisprudence.
“In further proceedings, it is necessary to take into account (all) the established circumstances that are decisive for assessing whether the alleged abuse of its dominant position by the application of the anti-competitive pricing practice of margin compression could have (and actually did) occur on the part of the defendant, and whether in as a result, the plaintiff suffered the alleged damage in the form of lost profit,” the judgment reads.
“We believe that after this judgment, further court proceedings will take place within the limits of European competition law and according to a number of precedents in this area, and as a result we will be successful in the dispute. The shareholders of the defendant O2 Czech Republic a.s. will have to deal with the ever-increasing value of the possible claimed amount, which is already around ten billion crowns today,” said Dvořák.
“At the end of 2003, Volný provided advantageous Internet access to almost one third of Czech users. At that time, Telefónica O2 Czech Republic, a.s., with its illegal pricing policy, prevented Volný and its other competitors from offering customers an attractively priced Internet connection via ADSL,” added Dvořák .
O2 spokesperson Hany Farghali told Hospodářské novina that NS based its decision on only one questionable point. “We had another twenty arguments why we did not commit illegal compression of margins. Not one of them was challenged,” said Fargali, adding that Volný, like other competitors, had enough room for his margin and is only trying to bring his failed business to O2 intention.
Source: CTK
