Telefónica has received a sanction from the National Markets and Competition Commission due to an alleged non-compliance when acquiring the rights to DTS (formerly Sogecable) in 2015, the business group specialized in sports broadcasting. The objective is to ensure that the Spanish company does not become a monopoly and to preserve competition in the markets affected by this contracting operation. Thus, the agency will begin surveillance work to make sure that everything is under control.
This is not the first time that the CNMC has filed a complaint against Telefónica regarding the acquisition of football rights. Another case already occurred in which a breach of commitments was filed with Sogecable 3 years ago, specifically in July 2021, where a change of products from the operator’s Merger offer was requested with the acquisition of a smartphone that at the same time Third-party pay television services were added, but that situation breached the rights of commitments. Specifically, this promotion urged customers to have to remain with Telefónica for a period of 36 months with a penalty in exchange for a fee of 3 euros per month for leasing a mobile phone.
On this occasion, the regulatory body in charge of guaranteeing transparency in the telecommunications sector and in the rest of the markets, has come to the fore again to investigate a contract for audiovisual content that was awarded on April 22, 2015 with the authorization of the purchase of DTS, but apparently the company led by José María Álvarez-Pallete has not met the forecast.
A sanction against the rights of the LNFP
Once again, the same episode is repeated as on previous occasions, and the CNMC has not hesitated to launch a new investigation mechanism to make the leap to carrying out surveillance work to verify that Telefónica continues to comply with the commitments that were established. on April 22, 2015 with the purchase of the rights to the LNFP (National Professional Football League), which were previously controlled by Sogecable.
At this point, the CNMC asked the company to extend this fulfillment of conditions for an additional period of three years. Thus, Telefónica could not allow the exploitation of the acquired content beyond that maximum period starting from the signing of the contract. Specifically, a consensus was reached with the LNFP by which the broadcasting, audiovisual exploitation and marketing rights of certain matches and content of the National First Division League Championship were transferred exclusively, intended for their subscribers or clients for private or residential use. . Two lots were included in this agreement. In the first, five matches of each LaLiga matchday and, in the second batch, the ten matches corresponding to three live matchdays for the 2022/20223 and subsequent seasons.
From here, a sanctioning file is opened that will last up to three months with the main reason of clarifying whether any altercation really occurred during the process of acquiring the games of the king of sport in Spain. It remains to be seen whether Telefónica will file a lawsuit to defend its interests.
