OREANDA-NEWS. June 26, 2013. The 20th Arbitration Appeal Court supported the position of the Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in the Smolensk region (Smolensk OFAS Russia) on abusing dominance by a cable operator television on the market of telecommunications services.

Smolensk OFAS Russia received a petition from the residents of Gagarin, the Smolensk region, that “Orbita Plus” Ltd. – a cable TV operator stopped broadcasting national mandatory publically available TV channels. Based on the petition, the antimonopoly body initiated a case upon signs of violating the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”. In the course of the investigation, the Commission established that the operator provides TV broadcasting service to its subscribers in the form of packages with different number of TV programmes and different subscriber’s fee: “Social”, “Basic”, “Extended”, which included national mandatory public TV channels.

“Orbita Plus” Ltd. informed its subscribers that used various packages of TV-channels, that from 1st April 2012 TV-broadcasting contracts would be terminated and it would be necessary to conclude new contracts with the only package – Extended”. “Orbita Plus” Ltd. unilaterally terminated broadcasting of all TV channels, including mandatory national channels, to those subscribers who did not conclude new contracts and did not pay the fee for TV broadcasting before the beginning of the next calendar month.

The Commission of Smolensk OFAS Russia found that “Orbita Plus” Ltd. abused its market dominance (Part 1 Article 10 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”), and issued a determination under which the cable TV operator must resume providing the service in the part of broadcasting national mandatory public TV channels approved by the Order of the President “On the National Mandatory Public TV- and Radio Channels”, regardless of whether there are subscribers’ fee arrears. The operator disagreed with the decision of the antimonopoly body and approached Smolensk Regional Arbitration Court and then the 20th Arbitration Appeal Court.

The Courts of two instances confirmed legitimacy of the decision of Smolensk OFAS Russia.