Claro has 20 working days to appeal fine

The mobile phone company Claro (Conecel) has 20 working days to appeal the sanction issued on last Friday by the Superintendence of Control of Market Power (SCPM for its Spanish acronym), which imposed a fine of $ 138.4 million for alleged market abuse.

This was explained yesterday by the General Intendent of the Superintendence, Santiago Salinas, citing that Claro may appeal without first paying the fine, according to current regulations. In case they pay, the raised money, according to art . 86 of the Act, will go to the National Treasury.

The complaint came from the government’s National Telecommunications Corporation (CNT for its Spanish acronym), made on June 28, 2013, when the entity brought charges against Conecel because it found that of the 1,515 leases of Conecel, 83 % of cases, i.e. 1,260, had exclusivity, so that the owners could not lease to third parties.

CNT argued that this conduct prevented the state company to deploy its new mobile network HSPA Plus on a national scale. On its behalf, Claro has said that CNT could have managed the rental of premises nearby and avoid the problem.

Sara Báez and Santiago Salinas, officers of the Superintendence of Control of Market Power.