Dominant Swedish telecom operator TeliaSonera didn’t necessarily violate competition law...

lost money competing for downstream services, European Court of Justice Advocate General Ján Mazák said Thursday. His non-binding opinion came in a case in which the Swedish National Competition Authority (NCA) fined the incumbent in 2004 144 million kroner, now the equivalent of about $19 million, for allegedly abusing its dominant position via the “margin squeeze.” TeliaSonera appealed, and the Stockholm District Court asked the ECJ to rule on 10 preliminary questions of EU competition law. The European Commission, NCA and competitor Tele2 argued that TeliaSonera’s actions amounted to a margin squeeze, but Mazák sided with the incumbent’s position that margin squeeze is anti-competitive only where the dominant player is required by regulators to supply the wholesale products or where those products are indispensable for competition. The evidence showed that there are several alternative technologies available in Sweden to provide end-users with broadband, he said. Among other things, the opinion also said: (1) In abusive margin squeeze cases, in principle, only the prices of the dominant player are relevant. (2) Competition authorities must show how the dominant player’s pricing affects competition; a “mere claim that there may be remote, abstract anti-competitive effects will not suffice.” (3) The expectation that the operator will be able to recover its losses isn’t required for a margin squeeze to be abusive because it may in fact not suffer any losses. The EC doesn’t comment on advocate general opinions, said a spokeswoman for Competition Policy Commissioner Joaquín Almunia.