Colombia. For the breach of the conditions that in 2008 the then National Television Commission, CNTV, imposed on Telmex, today called Claro Colombia, the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce imposed a sanction on the company for 10,700 million Colombian pesos.
According to the regulator, the CNTV had prohibited Telmex from agreeing or making effective clauses of minimum permanence of two years with its customers in the contracts of the subscription television service, under which users were obliged to pay penalties if they changed providers before the expiration of said permanence.
The sanction indicated that Telmex's failure to comply with itself, and improperly, generated an important source of resources, achieving a potential impact on the market by discouraging some of its customers from changing their subscription television service provider.
In the decision, the Superintendence also orders the return of the money to the 9,135 subscribers to whom the minimum permanence clause was made effective. The contracts of these users amounted to 1,651 million pesos.
The entity clarified the sanction corresponds to events that occurred in 2008, but that at present agreeing minimum permanence clauses in telecommunications is allowed and for this the operators must comply with the special rules provided by law for such events, which fundamentally point to substantial benefits for the user in relation to the ordinary conditions of the contracts and always with the possibility that the user can choose to contract with said clauses or without them.
