Press Release: Antitrust: Commission fines Telefónica and Portugal Telecom €79 million for illegal non-compete contract clause

The European Commission has imposed fines of €66,894,000 on Telefónica and of €12,290,000 on Portugal Telecom for agreeing not to compete with each other on the Iberian telecommunications markets, in breach of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) which prohibits anti-competitive agreements.

In July 2010, in the context of the acquisition by Telefónica of the Brazilian mobile operator Vivo, which was until then jointly owned by both parties, the parties inserted a clause in the contract indicating they would not compete with each other in Spain and Portugal as from the end of September 2010. The parties terminated the non-compete agreement in early February 2011, after the Commission opened antitrust proceedings.