Bulgaria's Communications Watchdog Imposed Fines of BGN 8M in 7 Months

Business | August 8, 2012, Wednesday // 18:48
Bulgaria: Bulgaria's Communications Watchdog Imposed Fines of BGN 8M in 7 Months Veselin Bozhkov, Chair of the Communications Regulation Commission, has warned that breaches of liability collection procedures will result in tip-offs to the prosecuting authority. Photo by BGNES

In the period January 1 – July 31, 2012, Bulgaria's Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) imposed fines of nearly BGN 8 M, of which BGN 7.5 M were number portability penalties of mobile operators, according to CRC Chair Veselin Bozhkov.

In a Wednesday interview for the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), he explained that the watchdog had received a total of 3120 complaints in the reporting period, the majority of them against mobile operators.

Bozhkov informed that the CRC had conducted 1877 inspections and issued 1877 statements of findings in the first seven months of 2012.

He added that the watchdog had received a total of 4748 complaints in 2011, imposing fines of BGN 17 M.

The CRC Chair pointed out that the collection of unpaid bills of subscribers was a key problem because it was not carried out in line with the statutory procedures.

"The manner in which this is done by some companies reminds me of the 90s of the last century. Since we are an EU Member State and it is already 2012 this is unacceptable," Bozhkov noted.

Bozhkov vowed to report all violations of the procedure to the competent authorities, stressing that the abovementioned breaches of statutory procedures counted as crimes and had to be referred to the prosecuting authority.

The CRC Chair said that he had sent a letter to the major mobile operators, warning them to keep their obligations under the Obligations and Contracts Act and the contracts with different subscribers.

He was adamant that a failure to comply with the instructions listed in the letter would result in tip-offs to the prosecutor's office.

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Tags: Veselin Bozhkov, Communications Regulation Commission (CRC), mobile operators, number portability, debt collection, subscribers

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