Norway’s Competition Authority has imposed a penalty of $96.3 million on Telenor, saying the telecoms provider abused its dominant market position in Norway.
Telenor resisted the introduction of a third mobile phone network in Norway to compete with Telenor and Telia Company from Sweden.
From 2007, Network Norway and Tele2 jointly sought to build a third nationwide mobile phone network, and bought access for its customers to Telenor’s network for the areas it had not yet developed. In 2010, Telenor altered the conditions of the agreement in a way that killed any economic incentive to build a separate network.
“The Competition Authority has found that Telenor deliberately altered the access agreement to stop Network Norway’s further investments in the third network,” it said in a statement.
“We disagree that we have violated the Competition Act,” Telenor said in a statement, adding it was likely to file an appeal.
Telenor said the decision can be appealed to Norway’s Competition Appeals Committee and later to the courts.
The Competition Authority in 2016 said it had considered imposing a fine of 906 million Norwegian crowns. The Competition Authority later dropped parts of the case, Telenor said.
