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Telecom Italia & Vodafone Agree To Settle Antitrust Complaints

By  |  August 12, 2021

Telecom Italia (TIM) has reached an out-of-court agreement with Vodafone to put an end to most of the legal battles undertaken by the two rivals in recent years, according to information gathered by La Stampa. Under the global settlement, signed at the end of May, the groups have abandoned demands for damages and commercial disputes against each other, amounting to €2 billion (US$2.3 billion) worth of claims.

TIM’s partnership with DAZN, which has won domestic rights to screen Italy’s top-flight soccer matches, has drawn scrutiny from the antitrust watchdog, which earlier this month started investigating the accord saying it could affect competition.

One of the remedies TIM proposed to allay the regulator’s concerns is a pledge not to bundle its broadband offer with TIM Vision pay-TV services, one of the sources said.

TIM has clinched the DAZN deal as part of a push to develop so-called adjacent businesses, such as cloud, cybersecurity, and pay-TV services, under a new three-year plan.

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