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Cape Town - The Competition Commission has filed a cross
appeal against sections of the Competition Tribunal's guilty finding of
Telkom's anticompetitive behaviour and wants the fixed-line operator to face a
stiffer penalty.
TechCentral reported that the Commission believed it had
proven the grounds for a conviction on other grounds and that the tribunal
should have imposed the proposed penalty of around R3bn. It still wants Telkom
[JSE:TKG] to pay a higher fine and believes the tribunal made a mistake by making
the penalty so low.
Telkom's appeal against the fine and the commission's cross
appeal mean that Telkom would not be required to meet the requirements of the
tribunal's ruling, the report said.
But in the event that the commission's cross appeal is
successful, then Telkom could face a steeper penalty with a much wider
precedent.
Telkom said it had received notice of the Competition
Commission's cross appeal.
"The commission is fully within its rights to cross appeal those aspects of the tribunal’s ruling it does not agree with. The matter will now proceed to a hearing of the appeal and cross appeal by the competition appeal court," a Telkom spokesperson is quoted as saying.
In April the Competition Tribunal fined Telkom R449m for abusing its dominance in the telecommunications market between 1999 and 2004.
The fine followed a decade-long investigation into the telecommunications company's practices.
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