French Minister Thierry Breton has said that if evidence, backed up allegations of a price-fixing deal among France's three dominant mobile telecommunications operators, it would have to be punished.
Investigative weekly Le Canard Enchaine reported that investigators had found evidence of regular meetings between officials of Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom to share confidential pricing and market information between 1997 and 2003. All three operators have refuted the charges.
"If there was an agreement, it must be punished, if there was nothing, it must be said," Breton told the state-owned news radio station France Info here on August 25.
Before becoming finance minister, Breton was chief executive at France Telecom, the state-controlled parent company of Orange.
But Breton told France Info that investigations by the DGCCRF, a body that investigates allegations of fraud and competition abuse, was focusing on the period before he took over at the telecom group.
Patrick Devedjian acknowledged that the allegations concerned a period when Breton was not running France Telecom.
The minister, however, noted on France Info that his ministry was not charged with judging possible infractions, and that therefore there was no ambiguity of any kind.
Meanwhile, the consumer protection group UFC-Que Choisir said it might press for mobile telephone subscribers to obtain compensation if an illegal accord was confirmed.
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