Croatian Regulator Says Mobile Phone Operators Didn’t Fix Prices

The Croatian Competition Agency said it found no direct evidence of price fixing among mobile phone operators T-Hrvatski Telekom d.d., Vipnet d.o.o. and Tele2.

The regulator said it investigated allegations the providers violated competition rules by “coordinating activities” to sharply increase tariffs for voice calls within mobile networks in October 2009, at a time when the government imposed a 6 percent tax on mobile services, the Zagreb-based Agency said in a statement on its website.

“Although there were indications of coordinated action,” including the operators’ joint public statement that they would take measures to counter the effect of the tax, the authorities found no wrongdoing, the regulator said.

T-Hrvatski, the country’s biggest telecommunications provider, is a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE), while Vipnet is owned by Telekom Austria AG (TKA), and Tele2 is a unit of Tele2 AB (TEL2B), Sweden’s second-largest telephone company.

To contact the reporter on this story: Misha Savic in Belgrade at msavic2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for the story: James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net