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The telecommunications company was found to have made infrastructure records unavailable for use by competing providers.
Irish telecommunications company Eircom – which publicly trades under the name Eir – has agreed to pay a €2.8m fine, handed down by Irish communications regulator ComReg. The organisation opened the investigation into Eir in 2019, due to a failure to allow other operators access to infrastructure records.
As per official rules, Eir is required to give competing providers access to its infrastructure, in particular passive access records documenting the location, physical characteristics and utilisation of ducts, poles and chambers, in order to deploy their own cables, which the company has now agreed it did not do.
In 2021 ComReg found that Eir was guilty of non-compliance. This prompted ComReg to enact High Court proceedings in 2022 to have the breach officially confirmed and also to compel Eir to comply with its obligations. The case was settled yesterday (27 November), with Eir also ordered to cover €200,000 of ComReg’s legal costs.
In a statement, ComReg said: “Eircom acknowledged that its implementation of substantial remediation on 1 November 2021 fell short of full compliance and that Eircom remained in breach of the relevant obligations following implementation of the remediation on 1 November 2021.”
A representative of Eir also commented on the announcement, stating: “Eir acknowledges the conclusion of a longstanding compliance case with ComReg regarding access to infrastructure records for other operators relating to a 2018 market analysis.
“This case, initiated in 2019, addressed regulatory obligations, all of which have since been met. We welcome the resolution of this matter and reaffirm our commitment to regulatory compliance and industry cooperation for the benefit of all stakeholders.”
In 2018, in a case regarded as a legal landmark, Eir agreed to pay a €3m penalty to settle a case taken against it by ComReg over allegations that it had favoured its own retail division when it came to granting access and repairing lines. Additionally, late last year, the CEO of Eir Ireland, Oliver Loomes, accused the regulatory body of being biased and in need of structural and institutional reform.
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