Polish Telephone Operator Fined for Monopolistic Practices

The Polish national telephone operator Telekomunikacja Polska SA (TPSA) was fined 54.1 million zlotys (14.1 million euros, 13.1 million dollars) on Monday for monopolistic practices by the country's competition authority. Despite a warning in July, TPSA continued to apply artificially high tariffs for intercity calls of longer than 100 kilometers (62 miles), the competition and consumer protection office told PAP news agency. The competition authority said the high tariffs for intercity calls allowed TPSA to subsidize local services for which there is some competition. Poland will completely liberalize the local and domestic intercity market in January 2002 and intercity calls in January 2003. A France Telecom-led consortium paid 4.6 billion euros for a 35-percent stake in TPSA last year.