Cellnex fights CNMC fine
September 4, 2024
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Cellnex, the Spanish domestic broadcasting agency, is taking regulatory body CNMC to Spain’s Constitutional Court to content a €13.7 million fine for abuse of its dominant position.
The company has already unsuccessfully appealed against the sanction before several courts. In December 2023, the Supreme Court rejected the last appeal that the company filed.
The legal conflict dates back to 2012 when the CNMC imposed that fine on the company (then known as Abertis Telecom) for abuse of its dominant position in the carriage and distribution of DTT signals in Spain.
The filing of the latest appeal does not suspend the ruling of the National Court (of February 20th 2015), in which it rejected Cellnex’s appeal on the merits of the matter – although it partially upheld it – ordering the CNMC to recalculate the amount of the penalty. The regulator, however, ruled that the amount of the fine should not be rectified, to which the company appealed in 2023 to the Supreme Court with the outcome, as aforementioned, being unsuccessful. In May 2015, Cellnex had already filed an appeal before the Supreme Court considering that “not only is the recalculation of the amount appropriate, but that the group did not violate any competition regulations.”
Meanwhile, the CNMC has reported that FTTH lines in Spain grew by 54,122 lines in June to a total of 15.4 million lines. Movistar is the market leader with 5.49 million lines.