Competition law applies horizontally in all sectors, in addition to sector-specific regulation. Antitrust and merger control cases abound in the telecoms and media sectors, with significant cases also occurring in the postal sector. In addition, the rise of the data economy is challenging traditional approaches to assess market power.

Cullen International’s cross-sectoral Competition Law service tracks and analyses all of these developments, allowing you to prepare for the business risks and commercial opportunities presented by antitrust and merger control rules. Our English language database of unbiased national and EU case summaries is organised around ten categories of cases: eight covering different forms of abuse of dominance, plus those covering restrictive agreements and mergers.

Over ten weeks, we will share with you one case summary per week from each of these categories.

Stay tuned for our special case selection and let us surprise you with some cases you may not have known about! We trust you will find our case selection interesting.

Case 9: Anticompetitive bundling

Although bundling is common practice in the telecoms sector, our ninth case (in the tying and bundling category) shows that it can be considered anticompetitive in certain circumstances.

In this case, the Austrian competition authority found that the incumbent operator abused its dominant position by changing its fixed telephony tariff structure to drive customers towards its inexpensive bundles of line rental and calls.

The case also evidences the well-established principle that decisions taken by telecoms authorities do not shield operators from the application of competition law.