Claro coughs up USD45m anti-trust fine

El Tiempo writes that Mexican-backed telco Claro has paid a COP87.75 billion (USD45.12 million) fine for abusing its dominant position in the wireless market. Anti-trust authority the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce (SIC) issued two fines to the operator in September this year, for hindering competition by delaying unlocking mobile handsets (COP53.91 billion fine) and artificially inflating its number portability figures (COP33.84 billion). As previously noted by CommUpdate, Claro appealed the decision, with the cellco’s president Juan Carlos Archila noting that the SIC had studied just eight complaints regarding delays in unlocking handsets, questioning the validity of the study and the weight of the fine, given that the cellco sells around ten million devices annually. Further, he stressed that the fine for bulking portability figures related to one of the company’s distributors which Archila added had been sanctioned by Claro for violating their distributing agreement. The appeal was rejected, however, with the SIC pointing out that 1.8 million handsets had been locked by Claro.