Newsletter-21

134 NEWSLETTER 2016 Judgment of the CJEU in Telefónica S.A. and Telefónica de Espaħa S:A:U: v. Commission 7 The CJEU issued its judgment in  Telefónica S.A. and Telefónica de Espaħa S:A:U: v. Commission . Based on this judgment, the CJEU dismissed the appeal lodged by Telefónica and Telefónica de Espaħa (“Telefónica”), the former state monopoly in telecommunications in Spain, concerning its abuse of a dominant position in the wholesale broadband markets. The CJEU decided that Telefónica abused its dominant position by imposing unfair prices on its competitors in the form of a margin squeeze between the prices for the retail broadband access market, and the prices on the regional and national wholesale broadband access markets 8 . Also, it is noteworthy that the fine of €152 million imposed by the Commission and upheld by the General Court remained unchanged. Prominent Decisions of the Board on Price Squeezes The Board frequently makes investigations with regard to price squeezes in the telecommunications sector due to numerous com- plaints raised in the market. Unsurprisingly, the Board’s first decision 9 with respect to price squeezing was in the telecommunications sector. Yet, the term of price squeezing was not examined elaborately in the said decision, and the complaint against Türk Telekomünikasyon A.Ş. (“Türk Telekom”) was rejected by the Board, since Türk Telekom’s relevant campaign was approved by the Information and Communica- tion Technologies Authority. 7 Case C-295/12 P - Telefónica and Telefónica de España v Commission , Judge- ment of 10.07.2014, ECLI: EtJ:C:2014:2062. 8 Court of Justice of the European Union, Press Release No 95/14, Luxembourg, 10.07.2014, available at: http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/ pdf/2014-07/cp140095en.pdf (Accessed on: 07.12.2016). 9 Board decision dated 08.09.2005 and numbered 05-55/833-226, available at: http://www.rekabet.gov.tr/File/?path=ROOT%2f1%2fDocuments%2fGerek%25 c3%25a7eli%2bKurul%2bKarar%25c4%25b1%2fkarar1321.pdf (Accessed on: 07.12.2016).