European authorities launched simultaneous, surprise raids today on
all British and German mobile telephone firms for suspected price- fixing in call roaming services.
Inspectors and officials from the European Commission and nationalcompetition authorities made the unannounced searches on nineoperators based in Britain and Germany, the EC said in a statement.
``We are today raiding all British and all German mobile telephonyoperators as part of our wide-ranging inquiry into roaming charges,''said European Commission competition spokesman Mr Michael Tscherny.
``Roaming prices are not transparent and do not seem related to thecosts. We want to verify if the companies have colluded in illegalprice fixing,'' the spokesman said.
Roaming charges are the prices customers pay to make and receivecalls with their mobile telephones while they travel abroad.
European Commission officials searched five British and four Germancompanies, Mr Tscherny said. The European Commission chose to focuson concrete cases in Britain and Germany because an initially wide- ranging inquiry highlighted ``significant problems'', he added.
Officials were particularly concerned about the economic impact ofcollusion because Britain and Germany were two of the EuropeanUnion’s largest economies, he said.
Mobile telephone companies confirmed they had been searched. Thetargets included France Telecom's mobile telephone unit Orange SA,British groups Vodafone and BT Cellnet, and Deutsche Telekom AG'sGerman subsidiary T-Mobile in Bonn along with its British subsidiaryOne 2 One.
On the stock market in Frankfurt, Deutsche Telekom shares were down0.47 euros, or 1.79 per cent, at 25.74 euros. ``We feel calm aboutthe searches,'' said a Deutsche Telekom spokesman in Frankfurt,adding that the company was cooperating fully and providingrequested documents.
Share prices in the companies were all lower in London after thenews broke though the market had been weaker earlier in the day aswell. Orange stock was down 1.7 per cent to 561.5 pence, BT was down3.2 per cent to 444.25 pence and Vodafone was down 3.9 per cent to147.75 pence.
The European Commission statement said the inspections were afollow-up to a European Union-wide inquiry into mobile roaminglaunched inJanuary 2000, which established ``serious competitionconcerns''.
AFP