2 July 2012: The Court of Appeal has? upheld an earlier High Court decision against Telecom for breaching section 36 of the Commerce Act, in a judgment released today in the ?data tails? case.
A 2009 High Court ruling found that from 2001 to 2004 Telecom unlawfully took advantage of its market power to charge downstream competitors disproportionately high prices for wholesale access to its network. This prevented competitors from offering retail end-to-end high-speed data services at a competitive price. Telecom appealed that decision.
In the Court of Appeal judgment, Justice Glazebrook dismissed Telecom?s appeal saying that Telecom?s breach ?…was a significant breach. It was a ?universal? breach of the [pricing rule] in that it applied to all usable data tails offered by Telecom over the relevant period, for all speed and transmission pathway combinations.? In the Court of Appeal?s view, statements in internal Telecom memoranda from 1999 ?…indicated that Telecom?s philosophy was to avoid price competition.?
Full story here.