Readers of our previous eZines will be aware of the ongoing saga
of the appropriate price control obligation for MTRs for the six
Irish mobile service providers designed with significant market
power (SMP). In late 2012, ComReg proposed
the use of a benchmarking approach - based on practices in seven
other EU Member States which employed a bottom-up Long Run
Incremental Cost (LRIC) methodology - to set MTRs
for operators designated as having SMP in the market for mobile
voice call termination.
Vodafone challenged ComReg's decision D12/12 in the High
Court, and Cooke J found against ComReg in respect of ComReg's
use of benchmarking. Accordingly, ComReg was forced to go
back to the drawing board and build a cost model to determine
appropriate maximum MTRs for the six Irish mobile operators
concerned. Cooke J however postponed any ruling on
Vodafone's challenge to the validity of the use of pure LRIC as
the appropriate cost model. Instead, Cooke J left the
