EU regulators accept Deutsche Telekom's Czech mobile unit, 02 Czech concessions

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU antitrust regulators on Monday accepted concessions from Deutsche Telekom's Czech mobile unit, 02 Czech and Czech telecoms infrastructure provider Cetin to ensure competition in the Czech Republic and ended their investigation.

The European Commission in 2019 charged the companies of restricting competition via their network sharing deal struck in 2011. The companies offered concessions in October last year and subsequently tweaked them after feedback from rivals and customers.

"The Commission made binding commitments offered by T-Mobile CZ, CETIN and O2 CZ that will keep the benefits of network sharing whilst removing technical and financial disincentives to unilateral deployments and limiting information exchange, all to the benefit of Czech mobile user," Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

The companies will modernise the mobile network equipment to enable more flexibility and independence for the two sharing parties in certain radio frequencies.

They will also review and change the financial conditions for unilateral network deployments and improve the contractual provisions limiting information exchange to the minimum necessary for operating the shared network.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee)