FAS filed a case against MegaFon for raising tariffs for international roaming

The Federal Antimonopoly Service has filed a lawsuit against the MegaFon telecom operator, Vedomosti reports . The reason for this reaction of the regulator was the unjustified, according to the FAS, increase in roaming tariffs by 20-2200% to 38 destinations from December 12, 2016.

The trial is scheduled for March 6, 2017. If MegaFon’s wine is recognized, the operator faces a fine ranging from 300,000 to 1 million rubles. The FAS stressed that other telecom operators are in the same conditions, but they did not raise tariffs for international roaming.

The case against MegaFon was initiated on the grounds of a violation of Section 10, Part 1, Article 10 of the Law on Protection of Competition , which implies the abuse of dominant market position.
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A feature of the relationship between FAS and telecom operators is that each major operator is separately recognized as dominant in the cellular market, and in total they all collectively dominate the market. Collective dominance occurs if three companies own more than 50% of the market or five companies — more than 70%, explained Head of the FAS Transport and Communications Control Department Elena Zaeva to Vedomosti.

A representative of MegaFon claims that the increase in roaming tariffs is associated with an increase in the cost of cellular communications from foreign operators. Thus, MegaFon claims that over the past year the cost of services of foreign operators for the company has increased by an average of 482%. The reason for this, apart from the increase in the cost of communication services from foreign operators, were payments in foreign currency, while MegaFon customers pay for services in rubles. All this together has led to an increase in roaming communication tariffs.

“The current basic tariffs for calls in roaming do not even compensate for the company's direct costs on roaming contracts with foreign telecom operators,” the MegaFon commentary for Interfax noted. In addition, the telecom operator claims that voice services in roaming in 2014 were no longer profitable due to exchange rate differences, but the company continues to provide them.

Megaphone encountered roaming attention from FAS in 2010. But then the service had claims to the entire “big three” of operators, and not just to one of them. In the event of a guilty plea, the telecom operator will be obliged not only to pay the fine, but also to bring the tariffs into an “economically sound state”.