Airdata challenges Telefónica's acquisition of E-Plus
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Airdata challenges Telefónica's acquisition of E-Plus

Airdata has filed a challenge at the European Court of Justice to Telefonica Deutschland’s €8.6 million acquisition of E-Plus.

The European Commission should not have approved the takeover as the commitments made by the operator were not sufficient to ensure fair competition, said the company’s CEO Christian Irmler.

Telefonica has agreed to sell network capacity, as well as improve conditions offered to a number of service providers.

The acquisition of E-Plus, which was completed last year, has reduced the number of operators in Germany to three from four, resulting in Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone Germany and Telefonica Deutschland being able to dictate prices, claims Airdata.

Conditions for the allocation of frequencies requires that licensees have to be independent throughout the duration of use, implying that some frequencies should have been returned, said the company. 

However Telefonica has kept unused frequencies on the 2.6GHz band which Airdata claims is unlawful and uncompetitive.  

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