Noticias

The Supreme Court has upheld the ruling issued by the Competition Tribunal (TDLC) in May 2024 against the Football Channel (Canal del Fútbol, or CDF, now TNT Sports), confirming that the company abused its dominant position in the market for the live and direct broadcasting of matches in the National Professional Football Championship.

In its decision, the Court maintained the fine imposed by the TDLC amounting to 32,000 Annual Tax Units (approximately US$28 million)—the highest monetary sanction ever imposed in Chile for a competition law infringement.

Moreover, the Court granted the appeal filed by the National Economic Prosecutor’s Office (FNE), extending the original ruling by prohibiting two additional practices that had not been sanctioned by the TDLC: (i) the imposition of minimum resale prices; and (ii) the restriction of promotional offers that cable operators could make in relation to the CDF Premium and/or CDF HD channels.

Consequently, the company must cease these two practices, in addition to the two already prohibited by the TDLC at the request of the FNE. These include: (i) the imposition of an arbitrary guaranteed minimum number of subscribers; and (ii) the requirement that cable operators distribute the CDF Basic channel, which does not broadcast live matches, to their entire customer base as a condition for accessing CDF Premium and/or CDF HD. According to the TDLC, these practices allowed CDF to extract rents in an abusive and discriminatory manner.

The Court held that “each of the contested practices, individually and, more importantly, as a whole, constitutes an abuse of a dominant position and, as such, produces the anticompetitive effects attributed to them.”

Specifically, regarding the imposition of minimum resale prices, the restriction of low-cost sales, and the limitation of promotional activities, the judgment noted that “these mechanisms only have the effect of preventing the free setting of prices or sales conditions based on supply and demand, thereby restricting competition to the detriment of end consumers”.

As for the bundling of the three CDF signals (Basic, Premium, and HD), the Court found that this constituted a tied sale without economic or commercial justification, concluding that “the leveraging and rent extraction denounced occur to the direct detriment of cable operators and final consumers.”

The National Economic Prosecutor, Jorge Grunberg, welcomed the ruling, stating: “This judgment constitutes a milestone in the prosecution of abuses of dominant position in our country. The Supreme Court has sent a clear message about the gravity of this kind of anticompetitive conduct by upholding the highest individual fine ever imposed in a competition law case”.

The FNE filed its complaint against CDF in December 2020, following an investigation that revealed the company had, since at least 2006, progressively and systematically implemented contract clauses harmful to competition, enabling it to extract rents that would not have been obtained under competitive market conditions.

See Supreme Court Ruling.

See TDLC Judgment.

See FNE Complaint.