Orion Telecom is seeking a copy of a document that it hopes will prove that Telkom has engaged in anti-competitive behaviour.
Two of Orion`s major clients, Standard Bank and Edgars, chose not to renew their contracts, after Telkom had "made them an offer which they could not refuse".
According to Orion`s MD, Don Tredoux, part of the deal appears to have included lucrative discounts for the clients, but only if they took their cellular traffic from Orion`s network in order to take them past the threshold required for the new deal.
"As far as we are concerned, the deal they offered to our clients involved cross-subsidisation of costs from services where they hold a monopoly, meaning there was no way for us to compete," says Tredoux.
He says Telkom has clearly used its position as a public utility to gain the custom of Orion`s customers, as no other inducement would effectively preclude Orion from operating within the cellular telephony market.
"Orion has been trying to get hold of a copy of the deals signed with Standard Bank and Edgars, but Telkom has claimed that these are confidential, which we find difficult to understand, since its offering has been marketed as an offering generally available to the public, provided certain thresholds are achieved.
"An application is to be heard before the Competition Tribunal in Pretoria on 15 December, which will decide whether Orion may be privy to these documents."
He says these documents are necessary to support the company`s affidavit seeking interim relief while the investigation into anti-competitive behaviour by the Competition Commission - which can be a lengthy process - is completed.
"We cannot afford to lose anymore clients to the monopoly through these special deals they are making, which is why we are seeking to prevent this happening by requesting interim relief," he says.
"I believe that these documents will prove to be the smoking gun that shows that Telkom has provided special deals for certain clients, in order to tempt them away from Orion.
"Personally, I think the public should be asking themselves why Telkom is offering special deals to certain clients. After all, if it`s good enough for some, why can the rest not also get these deals?"
Tredoux believes there are two reasons for the incumbent wanting to keep the deals confidential.
"I believe the monopoly is gunning for Orion - they have made unsuccessful attempts in the past to prove that our operation was illegal - and I also think that if these special deals were made public and other corporates demanded the same rates, it would adversely affect Telkom`s bottom line.
"If we get our hands on copies of these deals on the 15th, we will be ready to take them to task for anti-competitive behaviour early in the New Year."
Telkom`s senior manager for media relations, Andrew Weldrick, says that the incumbent`s stance remains the same, which is that it does not believe it has engaged in anti-competitive behaviour.
"As far as the agreements we signed with Standard Bank and Edgars go, they were signed in confidentiality and we will respect the confidentiality of those agreements unless we are otherwise instructed by a court of law."
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