3 August 2012: The New Zealand Court of Appeal has upheld a record $12 million penalty imposed against Telecom in April 2011 for breaching the Commerce Act, following an unsuccessful appeal by Telecom.
The Court’s decision follows a judgment dated 27 June 2012 in which the Court of Appeal also ruled against Telecom’s challenges to the Court’s substantive findings. The Commerce Commission had brought penalty proceedings against Telecom for breaching section 36 of the Commerce Act.
The Court of Appeal found that from February 1999 to late 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 transmission services at a competitive price.
Full story here.