Final Court Instance Definitively Upholds Competition Authority’s Decision in Telecoms Tying Case

Bulgaria’s final instance of judicial review the Supreme Administrative Court definitively confirmed the Bulgarian competition authority’s decision rejecting an abuse of dominance complaint brought by Bulgaria’s incumbent telecom BTC/Vivacom against CableTel, now Blizoo Media and Broadband.

The complaint was based on the fact that CableTel/Blizoo required subscribers wishing to use one of its digital services also to subscribe to its analogue Pay-TV service. The competition authority and the courts found that unbundling of the analogue service and the digital services on CableTel/Blizoo’s platform was not technically and economically viable and therefore tying the two types of services was the result of objective factors and could not represent abuse.

Boyanov & Co. represented CableTel/Blizoo before the competition authority and before the Supreme Administrative Court.