The Rabat Commercial Court ordered Maroc Telecom (MT) on Monday to compensate Wana Corporate, known more commonly as Inwi, for 6.3 Bln MAD in damages in an antitrust complaint Inwi filed in 2020 against the behemoth, accusing it of “anti-competitive” conduct.
Inwi had requested 6.85 Bln MAD in compensation.
The lawsuit centered around claims that MT had abused its dominant market position in unbundling and opening up its infrastructure network to competitors.
As part of promoting competition, Moroccan law required Local Loop Unbundling (LLU), where the final leg of the telecommunications network that connects a customer’s location to the nearest telephone exchange was opened up to allow multiple providers to share the actual connections or wires that connect households or businesses to the telephone network.
The law promotes competition by allowing numerous suppliers to sell their services utilizing the current infrastructure and allowing customers to choose their telecom providers for the first time.
In December 2016, Inwi filed a complaint against MT with the National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ANRT), alleging anti-competitive practices in “the implementation of local-loop unbundling.”
In 2017, ANRT investigated the claims and discovered that MT had engaged in “cumulative conduct that had the effect of preventing and delaying competitors’ access to local loop unbundling and the landline market.” In 2019, the firm paid a 3.3 Bln MAD fine levied by the ANRT.
Maroc Telecom’s earnings in the first half of 2023 totaled MAD 2.9 billion ($289.6 million), a 2.3% annual increase.