Brussels, 23/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is continuing its investigation into the invoicing of roaming services in the EU. At this stage, however, it cannot give a timeframe for completion of the inquiry due to the complex nature of the issue, Tilman Lueder, Spokesman for Commissioner Monti, said. The Commission is nonetheless planning on being able to send a statement of grievances to the companies concerned by August or September. "We have great piles of files that we have to study (…). The market is a very complex one and it is very difficult to ascertain whether there is a cartel or not", the spokesman pointed out.
We would recall that the Commission opened an inquiry into the roaming services sector two years ago, with the United Kingdom and Germany in mind in particular. It suspects the existence of a cartel between several operators who are thought to have come to an agreement on prices invoiced to consumers using their portable equipment abroad. Prices would thus be artificially kept at a high level (up to 500% higher than the real cost of the roaming service provided). Operators targeted by the investigation are Vodafone, T-Mobile International, the British and German units of British Telecom, the German subsidiary of KPN and the activities of Orange (France Telecom group) in the United Kingdom.