Thus the competition Council ordered two case of club

The "club" are legal In some cases, Yes. In an opinion issued in 2001, the competition Council felt justified that a call to a particular operator is more expensive, if the operator requests more money to route the call. In other words, the rate may be higher provided that it is justified by a heavier cost. This is the case since early 2005: from now on, each mobile operator pays a call to his two counterparts and, therefore, is exposed to a higher cost for an appeal to his own network (which costs it almost nothing), it is theoretically entitled to pass this cost on the rate paid by the client. In 2002, Arcep estimated thus: "A differentiation of the retail price of calls on the networks known as wholesale price can be justified, provided that it reflects the costs actually incurred."

But attention! If the tariff difference is not related to the difference in cost, the club offer spends more. Thus, the competition Council ordered two case of club.

The Caribbean. In 2004, Bouygues complaint against several practices of Orange in the Caribbean. In particular, Orange customers paying more calls to Bouygues Bouygues customers calling to Orange (for calls outside package and prepaid cards). This surcharge is about 10 times higher than the cost actually incurred by Orange.

For the Council of competition, this surcharge "encourages all new Subscriber to connect to the network of relations." Joined strongly asymmetric market shares between Orange (82) and Bouygues (18), this factor reinforces the effect of club enjoyed by the mere fact of its size Orange and Bouygues gives the image of an expensive operator. "It can be reasonably presumed that the late locks the market entry by a club effect, itself reinforced by the significant difference in size between the two networks concerned constituent practice of abuse of dominant position".

Indeed, "for an operator in a dominant position, the practice of price differences is capable of constituting an abuse, if this practice is for the purpose or effect, to prevent distortion of competition or limit". The Commission therefore directs Orange to reduce the surcharge imposed on calls to Bouygues, so that this surcharge "does not exceed the difference between the costs incurred for the routing of calls.

Billing per second. In 2002, Orange provides billing in exchange for a surcharge of 12 eurocents per minute for calls to SFR and Bouygues. Remember that at the time, mobile operators do to charge not calls between them and, therefore, the cost is virtually zero regardless of the recipient operator. Arcep j. that "the proposed surcharge fees is, for calls to Bouygues, excessive in relation to the gap of the costs incurred and to SFR, unjustified." "So this surcharge fees cannot be economically justified by the cost of competing systems."

The Commission concludes that "it cannot be excluded that this additional fee has to limit the volume of calls by the Orange customers destined for competing networks." These effects are conducive to the largest of the parks. This effect should be all the more important that Orange has a market share of much higher than that of each of its two competitors. "Denounced tariff policy could therefore be constitutive of an abuse of dominant position".

Finally, Orange will remove its surcharge on the eve of the judgment.