Leeky
Posts: 3,357 +116
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The Dutch Competition Authority (NMA) raided the offices of mobile carriers KPN, Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile on Tuesday as part of a probe into allegations of "cartel" practices, including sharing of market information and price fixing relating to the mobile services they offer in the Netherlands. </p>
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The investigation is rumored to have been prompted by two whistle-blowers, one of which is said to have been a previously fired former director at one of the companies, and the other a current board member at one of the telecom providers.</p>
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All three mobile providers issued statements confirming officials had visited their offices and that they were all co-operating fully with the investigations. The Dutch market leader, KPN released a statement saying its offices in The Hague were raided at 08:30 local time on Tuesday, and five employees were being questioned. According to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/06/us-dutch-telecoms-idUSTRE7B519Y20111206">Reuters</a>, they stated that the authority was specifically investigating "collaborative practices for consumer mobile telecommunications packages as well as KPN's sales channels."</p>
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In August 2001, an investigation was launched into alleged price-fixing practices that resulted in KPN recently being fined €7.93 million. T-Mobile received a €4.6 million fine and Vodafone, €3.72 million.</p>
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In other news, U.S. wireless carrier AT&T was yesterday <a href="https://www.techspot.com/news/46546-att-rated-worst-wireless-provider-for-second-year-in-a-row.html">voted worst</a> mobile carrier for the second year in a row according to results from subscribers in a satisfaction survey by Consumer Reports. The survey polled 66,000 mobile customers asking them about customer service and customer support experiences with contract and non-contract providers. Verizon was the best wireless provider for the second year in a row.</p><p><a rel='canonical' href='https://www.techspot.com/news/46562-t-mobile-vodafone-and-kpn-raided-in-dutch-price-fixing-probe.html' target='_blank'>Permalink to story.</a></p><p class='permalink'><a rel='canonical' href='https://www.techspot.com/news/46562-t-mobile-vodafone-and-kpn-raided-in-dutch-price-fixing-probe.html'>https://www.techspot.com/news/46562-t-mobile-vodafone-and-kpn-raided-in-dutch-price-fixing-probe.html</a></p>
