MEO faces €2.46 million fine

Altice Portugal-owned service provider MEO has been hit with a €2.46 million fine imposed by Portuguese media regulator, Anacom.

The media regulator found MEO had violated the rules applicable to the termination of contracts on the initiative of subscribers.

According to Anacom, MEO did not provide subscribers the termination form that it is obliged to hand over whenever requested, and others in which the company did not ask customers for documents that were necessary to confirm the termination of the respective contracts or requested documents that were not necessary.

On top of this, it found the service provider did not confirm several complaints about contracts submitted by customers and provided incomplete information on the means and contacts available for submitting termination requests.

In a statement Anacom said: “With such conduct, MEO aimed to place unjustified and impermissible obstacles in the procedures for terminating contracts on the initiative of subscribers, in order to hinder, delay or even lead to the withdrawal of processes for changing the service provider, thus preventing way, to the development of competition in the electronic communications market.

“The behaviour adopted by the company is particularly serious, as it results in non-compliance with a legitimate ANACOM order, which was regularly communicated to it, calling into question the very regulation of the market in which it operates,” the regulator added.