Oftel publishes Competition Act strategys findings

Oftel has published a statement confirming its objective of using the Competition Act wherever possible.

Oftel's Competition Act strategy, published in July, sets out the approach Oftel will adopt to achieve this objective.

When investigating behaviour that may be anti-competitive, Oftel often has a choice between using the Competition Act 1998 or its powers under the sectoral regime, which usually means enforcing the conditions in operators' licences.

Where there is a choice between these two routes, Oftel's objective (in cases that do not arise from interconnection disputes) is to use the Competition Act wherever possible.

There are four main reasons for this:

• the Competition Act provides increased powers of investigation, including the power to carry out unannounced visits, and non-compliance with information requests can lead to criminal sanctions;
• under the Competition Act, Oftel can impose substantial financial penalties;
• the Competition Act enables Oftel to punish past behaviour without having to show a continuing breach of an operator's licence or the likelihood of future breaches;
• moving more towards reliance on competition law should make it easier for operators to develop compliance systems and cultures by learning from other sectors.

In the past Oftel has often started investigations under the sectoral regime and at a later stage assessed whether it would be more appropriate to use the Competition Act. In future, when faced with behaviour that could contravene both the Competition Act and the sectoral regime, Oftel's approach will be to investigate under the Competition Act from the start.

The statement also sets out Oftel's expectation that it willuse the Competition Act in the majority of new cases and that the proportion of cases dealt with under the Competition Act will increase. For greater transparency, if Oftel does not use the Competition Act it will give its reasons.

The statement is published on Oftel's website at www.oftel.gov.uk/publications/about_oftel/2002/cact0602.htm.

For further information contact Alistair Bridge (tel: 020 7634 8782 / e-mail: alistair.bridge@oftel.gov.uk).