By Alex Mita
MOBILE PHONE vendors were yesterday fuming over a decision by the Nicosia District Court to allow the Telecommunications Authority (CyTA) to continue selling mobile phones at its outlets.
More than 20 companies had appealed to the Committee for the Protection of Competition last year, claiming CyTA was using its dominant position in the market as the sole provider of telephone lines in unfair competition with mobile phone vendors.
The companies also claimed CyTA was abusing its monopoly to “directly and indirectly determine unfair prices of mobile phones, thus creating unfair conditions for trading.”
The vendors were also furious with CyTA for selling their products at places where people paid their phone bills or used the authority’s services.
But the Committee ruled the vendors’ claims were unfounded and allowed CyTA to continue the sale of mobiles.
The outraged vendors then appealed to the Supreme Court, but after hearing the case, Judge Panayiotis Kallis ruled CyTA was in no way using its position in the market unfairly.
Speaking to the Cyprus Mail yesterday, Yiannos Diakos, a spokesman for L.I.A. Soundtech LTD, said mobile phone vendors would now appeal to the European Court.
“If this is their decision we will appeal to the European Court,” he said.
“We believe the decision taken by the Committee for the Protection of Competition was unfair, because we can’t imagine a more classic example of unfair competition.
“CyTA imported 15,000 mobile phones and sent free advertising to its 300,000 customers in order to sell them,” Diakou added. “I don’t have that sort of backing to help me sell phones.
“If the system in Cyprus will not vindicate us, then we will be vindicated by the European system.”
The Chairman of the Competition Committee Christodoulos Tselepos told the Cyprus Mail yesterday mobile phone vendors had no case.
“We decided that CyTA was in no way breaching the law because the authority presented us with a very low share of the market, around eight per cent,” he said.
“This is not having a dominant position in the market. To have a dominant position in the market means not to be afraid of the competition.
“I changed my mobile phone three times since last year and I never once bought them from CyTA because, to be honest, their mobiles are more expensive.”
But Diakou rubbished Tselepos’ comments. “If I had £200 million to spend, I would also raise my prices,” he said. “We will not let this go by, we will fight it wherever we can.”
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
