Maroc Telecom has complied with the decision of the Rabat commercial court. The historic operator had been fined for anti-competitive practices.
Last July, the Casablanca Commercial Court of Appeal upheld Maroc Telecom’s conviction for abuse of a dominant position. The historic operator had 10 days to pay compensation of 6.4 billion dirhams to its competitor Wana Corporate, formerly Inwi, in damages. This has now been done. The payment “was made during July, thus avoiding Maroc Telecom a forced recovery procedure that could have greatly harmed its image.” The historic operator has thus abandoned the idea of appealing the court’s decision before the Court of Cassation, Morocco’s highest court.
Last January, the Rabat Commercial Court ordered Maroc Telecom to pay 6.4 billion dirhams in compensation to its competitor Wana Corporate for anti-competitive practices following a complaint filed in December 2021, in which the plaintiff claimed 6.8 billion dirhams in damages. This is the heaviest financial penalty ever imposed on a telecom operator in Morocco: “it represents 17% of Itissalat Al-Maghrib’s (IAM) 2023 turnover, and exceeds its 6.1 billion dirhams in profit last year.”
Maroc Telecom is no stranger to this. In January 2020, it was fined 3.3 billion dirhams, following a referral by Inwi to the National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ANRT). The latter concluded that the practices of the historic operator had “effectively prevented and delayed competitors’ access to unbundling and the fixed-line telephony market.”
