Togocel loses arm wrestling against telecom regulator in Supreme Court

Telecom

lundi, 26 avril 2021 17:55

Togocel loses arm wrestling against telecom regulator in Supreme Court

(Togo First) - Today, Togocel, a subsidiary of the Axian Group, lost its case in court against the Togolese telecom and posts regulator, ARCEP.

The Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court has rejected Togocel’s claim which states that it was accused and fined CFA1 billion for unfair competition practices and not for infringing the ARCEP’s non-differentiation rule. According to the Supreme court, the fine was in effect imposed for the latter accusation, not the former.

“The ARCEP did not sanction for anti-competitive practices but rather for a violation of the non-differentiation clause falling under article 23 of its specifications,” declared the Supreme court whose issues cannot be appealed.

Togocel’s basis for filing the case was an accusation of power abuse and incompetence against the ARCEP. “If the company had won the case, the regulator would have been judged incompetent and the fine would have been consequently. If that had happened, the case would have been settled by commercial courts,” a lawyer explained.

According to the regulator, the telecom company ceased violating its non-differentiation rule only after it was sanctioned with a fine, ignoring the many warnings it had been given beforehand.

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