The French competition authority removes some restrictions but retains remedies relating to the ‘Faber’ co-investment project between SFR and Bouygues Telecom.
Background: In October 2014, the French competition authority, the Autorite de la Concurrence approved the acquisition of SFR by the Altice group subsidiary Numericable, subject to remedies. Numericable was required to provide wholesale access to its cable network; to divest the Outremer Telecom mobile business; and to avoid transmitting strategic information to Vivendi which had a 20% stake in Numericable. In the business market, it had to sell its Completel DSL network, and offer wholesale fibre access through SFR. These requirements would last five years, with the option to renew them once.
Five years on, most remedies fall away: This week, the authority decided to waive most of them as it is satisfied with current levels of competition, particularly with regard to fibre. As a result, it is lifting the cable access requirement, as well as the dark fibre and optical fibre loop access remedies it had imposed in the business market.
Remedies related to a co-investment agreement stay: Altice had also committed to connect fibre-ready buildings in the ‘high-density’ area of France to the network deployed by SFR and Bouygues Telecom (‘Faber’ co-investment); this would have allowed Bouygues Telecom to use the network. However, Altice did not honour this commitment. In March 2017, the authority fined Altice €40m and issued two orders. For the buildings which should have been connected ahead of that decision, Altice faced penalty payments and had one additional year to connect them; for buildings to be connected afterwards, the initial commitments would stand. Since the authority has now found Altice to be aligned with the objectives of the Faber co-investment, it is now lifting the injunctions not involving penalty payments, and it is upholding the injunctions for which penalty payments apply. With regard to the latter, the authority will issue a separate ruling in H1 2020 on whether they should be liquidated and lifted.
