Mobinil Denies Official Notice Of Investigations From ECA

The Egyptian Mobile Services (Mobinil)-(EMOB.CA) has denied receiving any official notice of investigations regarding the raising of mobile recharge prices from the Egyptian Protection Authority (EPA).

Mobinil has confirmed in a statement issued today that in case of receiving official notice it would clarify its legal situation.

EPA has illustrated in a statement issued yesterday Tuesday, that it has referred Mobinil and Etisalat Misr to the Public Prosecution on charges of not cooperating in providing the data required by ECA.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Dr. Mona El-Garf, Chairman of ECA, said the competition protection law commits any company carrying out an economic activity to provide ECA with the requested data and documents. This item made ECA refer both companies to the Public Prosecution.

Dr. Mona emphasized that the referral of  both telecom operators wasn’t for spotting a violation of competition protection law, but it was because these companies refrained from duly supplying ECA with the data and documentation it had requested while investigating over a complaint against the three mobile firms.

Last October, ECA received a notification from the Customer Protection Agency (CPA) against the three mobile phone firms for imposing stamp tax on customers’ cards in conjunction with each other, starting from January 2012, pursuant to the complaint’s wording, which refers to the suspicion of practicing illegal spending; according to the wording of Article 6 of competition protection law.