Portuguese pay-television broadcaster Sport TV will be required to pay a fine of €2.7m ($2.98m) for abuse of a dominant market position, after the closure of a long-running case.
An original fine of €3.7m – imposed by the Autoridade da Concorrência, the country’s competition regulator, in 2013 – was reduced by €1m to €2.7m in June 2014.
The country’s competition tribunal upheld the regulator’s findings that Sport TV had adopted ‘discriminatory practices’ in imposing minimum carriage fee charges to pay-television operators between 2005 and 2011, but elected to reduce the fine. The original complaint about Sport TV’s carriage fee model was submitted by the Cabovisão operator in 2009.
The president of Portugal’s competition authority, António Ferreira Gomes, has now said that the Constitutional Court has confirmed the fine, thereby closing the case.
Sport TV was a broadcast partner for Portugal’s recent triumph at the Uefa Euro 2016 national team football tournament, televising 51 games during the competition, 27 on an exclusive basis.