Brussels ends probe into telecoms groups

The five largest European telecoms groups have been cleared of antitrust practices by Europe’s competition regulator following the end of a long-running Brussels probe. The European Commission said that it had closed a preliminary investigation into the extent of group discussions between Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, Vodafone, France Telecom and Telecom Italia. The chief executives of the four former state-backed incumbents and Vodafone had met to discuss the development of new technology standards for mobile services, which caused concern among the Brussels competition watchdog.

However, the companies had agreed to transfer responsibility for such technical standard setting to trade groups such as the GSMA even before the start of the investigation. The commission said that this was “a positive step that reduces the risk of standard setting work affecting competition negatively”. The group was nicknamed within the industry as the “E5”, which met occasionally although always with the presence of a lawyer taking notes of the discussions. Company executives have acknowledged in the past that the five telecoms groups risked competition complaints given the extent of their business across many of the EU’s 27 member states, with about four-fifths of EU mobile customers buying their mobile subscriptions from one of the four incumbent operators.