BEREC Opinion on Phase II investigation Case SK/2017/2010

Document number: BoR (17) 251

Document date: 05-12-2017

Date of registration: 08-12-2017

Document type:
Author: BEREC

On 25 September 2017, the European Commission registered a notification by the Slovakian National Regulatory Authority, RÚ, concerning termination rates in the market for wholesale call termination on individual mobile networks, being the fourth market review by RÚ. The notified draft measure concerns the proposal to set the maximum price for voice call termination on individual mobile networks of Slovak Telekom, Orange Slovakia, O2 Slovakia and SWAN Mobile from January 2018. In addition, the Commission is of the view that RÚ’s allowance for a mark-up in its calculation of the WACC, to compensate Slovakian operators for their relatively smaller size and higher risk compared to European operators, is not commonly applied by other NRAs in the EU and does not constitute a "common regulatory practice".

On 24 October 2017, the Commission sent a serious doubts letter opening a phase II investigation pursuant to Article 7a of Directive 2002/21/EC as amended by Directive 2009/140/EC.

The Commission’s serious doubts concern, in particular, the fact that RÚ failed to justify why SWAN Mobile has a higher unit cost than other operators, as SWAN Mobile has until now voluntarily accepted symmetric MTRs.

On the basis of the economic analysis set out in this Opinion, BEREC considers that the European Commission’s serious doubts are justified.