United Group said on Thursday that it was astonished by the statement from the Serbian Commission to Protect Competition confirming that it had given conditional approval for the contract between the state-owned Telekom Serbia and the Czech PPF Group’s Telenor despite the anti-competition goals of the agreement.
“We want to remind the public that Telekom documents clearly state that the goal of the agreement is to destroy SBB and put an end to its business operations and the media outlets owned by the United Media company in Serbia, including N1 and Nova S, and making Telekom the only provider of media content.
“Besides completely ignoring official Telekom Serbia documents and the obviously impermissible motivation for the contract with Telenor, the Commission has prevent SBB and United Media from taking part in the proceedings and did not consult them at all before taking its decision. The Commission also decided to completely ignore SBB’s submissions which precisely listed the anti-competition goals of the agreement and their anti-competition effects on the entire telecommunications market in Serbia.
“We warned the public in Serbia that all this shows that the goal of the authorities is to financially weaken United Group and which is why the plan to destroy a private company has been publicly supported through all institutions as well as personally by top state official and bodies. Unfortunately, the Commission decision shows that the state has interfered in the media sphere once more with the intention of destroying the free media and imposing a complete monopoly on providing information to the Serbian public.
“Since the decision has not been published yet we don’t know the conditions that the Commission to Protect Competition set for Telekom and Telenor but having learned from previous experience we can’t expect any of those conditions to lessen the anti-competition character of the contract. We feel that an agreement like this has to be blocked by the Commission and we will use all available legal means to dispute the scandalous Commission decision. We will turn to European Union institutions to protect our legitimate rights and point out the harsh violation of the principle of competition law by a body which should protect those rights,” United Group said.