National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology of the Republic of Moldova

The National Agency for Regulation in Electronic Communication and Information Technology (ANRCETI – www.anrceti.md) is announcing withdrawal of Administrative Board Decisions on special ex-ante obligations imposed to JSC “Orange Moldova”, JSC „Moldcell”, JSC „Moldtelecom” in connection with the significant market power of those providers on the market for call termination on individual mobile networks, as well as imposed to JSC „Moldtelecom” as the company has significant market power on the market of fixed local, long-distance and international telephone services, provided on the territory of the Republic of Moldova.

The projects were developed in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Electronic Communications, based on Administrative Board Decisions of the National Agency for Competition protection (ANPC) no. DCC - 60 of 27.12.2007, DCC – 41 of 15.11.2007 and DCC – 15 of 29.08.2007 which established the dominant position of JSC “Orange Moldova”, JSC “Moldcell” and JSC “Moldtelecom” on the market for call termination on individual mobile networks, as well as the ANPC Administrative Board Decision no.DCF-7 of 26.07.2007 which established the dominant position of JSC “Moldtelecom” on the fixed telephone market. The Agency also took into consideration ANPC Decision ANPC DCC-40 of 16.07.2009, which provided interpretation of the meaning conveyed by the two aforementioned decisions.

In March – April 2010, the four draft decisions were subject to the initial stage of public consultations on the Agency website. At the stage of repeated consultations, July - August 2010, ANRCETI received the opinion of ANPC Administrative Board of 29.07.2010, which says that „ANPC supports the decisions of ANRCETI on imposing special ex-ante obligations to JSC „Orange Moldova”, JSC Moldcell, JSC Moldtelecom in connection with the significant market power on the market of call termination on individual mobile networks, provided that the reference to ANPC decisions are deleted from the preamble to the mentioned draft decisions.” So, the aforementioned opinion of ANPC calls for the exclusion of references to their decisions from the four ANRCETI draft documents, reasoning their request by the „out-datedness of ANPC decisions, issued 3 years ado, the provisions of which are no longer current”.

Given the afore mentioned state of things, and the fact that the Agency developed four draft decisions solely based on ANPC judgments, ANRCETI Administrative Board decided to withdraw them from the public consultation process. The Board welcomes the comments and input provided to the Agency by the participants in the public consultation process and intends to take them into account in the development of measures to safeguard competition on the relevant electronic communications markets.

Additionally, the Agency announces of its intention to continue the process of relevant market identification, their detailed analysis, the designation of providers with significant market power and imposition of specific ex-ante obligations in accordance with the current legislation. The Agency intends to complete this work by the end of 2010.

August 13, 2010