Presidencia de la Nación

The investigation began as a result of a complaint filed by AMX, a company that operates in Argentina under the Claro brand and provides mobile and fixed telephone services, internet services and pay TV services. According to the complaint, Grupo Clarín imposed on AMX sales conditions for the signals Canal 13 and TN that prevented its acquisition, which made its entry as a pay TV operator in the geographic markets of the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (AMBA, for its acronym in Spanish) and the cities of Córdoba and Rosario impossible, restricting its ability to competitively replicate the quadruple play service.

Telecom is the leading telecommunications company in Argentina, with a nationwide presence. As a result of the merger between Grupo Clarín and Telecom, it became the first and only company to offer quadruple play (mobile telephony, fixed telephony, Internet and pay TV), with a predominant market share in different regions of the country. In turn, Grupo Clarín, through the firm ARTEAR, is engaged in the production of television content and signals, specifically Canal 13, TN, Volver, Metro, Canal A, Quiero Música and Magazine.

The investigation corroborated that Artear has a dominant position in the air channels segment, with the signal Canal 13, and in the pay television channels with news content segment, with the signal TN. Likewise, it was verified that in the pay TV service markets of AMBA, Córdoba city and Rosario city, Telecom has a dominant position with a share of more than 50% of the subscribers, while AMX is an entrant in such markets, with a share of less than 1%.

In effect, the CNDC found evidence of the commission of an abuse of dominant position by the firms Artear and Telecom in the urban agglomerations of AMBA, the city of Córdoba and the city of Rosario, from December 2017 to July 2021, consisting in the imposition of discriminatory conditions for the acquisition of transmission rights of their television signals to AMX (Claro), by discretionary fixing minimum subscriber amounts, and as a consequence hindering and obstructing AMX´s entry to the pay TV market.

The conduct generated damage to competition in the aforementioned pay TV markets and caused harm to the general economic interest, inasmuch as the denounced companies generated an artificial barrier to enter the pay TV markets in the geographic areas where Telecom operates or has plans to do so, obstructing the entry of AMX and/or other potential competitors, by means of the requirement of Artear ̶ holder of the rights over two of the highest rated signals of Argentine television ̶ of minimum subscriber ramps impossible to be met by an entrant firm. Faced with this imposition, AMX, like any other new entrant operator, found itself in the position of having to choose between not including those signals in its grid and offering a lower quality product or including them and selling its subscription at a higher price than that of its competitor (Telecom).

In turn, by establishing artificial barriers to the entry of new players, restricting the ability of new entrants to compete, Telecom maintained its dominant position in the pay TV market, which has allowed it to obtain a supracompetitive benefit in the quadruple play service, which is detrimental to consumers.

The Argentina Defence of Competition Act, Act 27.442, in its Section 3, specifies that certain commercial practices, when carried out by a human or legal person with a dominant position in a market, may be framed as an anticompetitive conduct. For instance, when those practices: (a) prevent, hinder or obstruct third parties from entering or remaining in a market or exclude them from it, and/or (b) impose discriminatory conditions for the acquisition or alienation of goods or services without reasons based on commercial uses and customs. As established in Section 1 of the mentioned act, these practices are prohibited and subject to penalties.