Czech Constitutional Court cancels decisions of Supreme Administrative Court and Antimonopoly Office against Telefónica O2 Czech Republic for alleged abuse of a dominant position

On 11 July 2007, the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic cancelled ongrounds of conflicting with the Czech Constitution the Antimonopoly Office’sdecision to impose a fine of CZK 48 million on Eurotel Praha, including theChairman of the Antimonopoly Office’s confirming decision and the SupremeAdministrative Court’s decision rejecting Eurotel Praha’s appeal against thesedecisions. The Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic’s resolution is finaland the fine of CZK 48 million is to be returned to Telefónica O2.

KŠB partner Pavel Dejl,who represented Eurotel Praha before the Constitutional Court of the CzechRepublic and in the earlier proceedings, commented the Antimonopoly Office’sfine was imposed illegally from the very beginning due to the fact Eurotel Prahadid not have a clear dominant position pursuant to legal regulations theAntimonopoly Office should have applied to the case in question.

The dispute and proceedings should now be definitely terminated since theConstitutional Court of the Czech Republic noted in its opinion the AntimonopolyOffice had missed all deadlines necessary for newly considering the case and thefine cannot be re-imposed. This is already the second case in which theAntimonopoly Office has been obliged to return fines imposed on clientsrepresented by KŠB. The first case was the fine imposed on Delta Pekárny, a.s.by the Antimonopoly Office’s decision No. S 233A/03-7786/03-ORP, as amended, bythe Chairman of the Antimonopoly Office’s decision No. R 3/2004.