Economic Determinants of Regulatory Decisions in the Polish Telecommunications Sector

The main policy goals undertaken by public authorities, primarily increasingly competitive telecommunication markets, are achieved through various and distinct administrative actions. Ex post public interventions are meant to protect competition by responding to actions that restrict or violate free market competition (proceedings concerning: the abuse of a dominant position and anti-competitive agreements). Ex ante interventions shapes the relationships among market participants in the framework of merger control and pro-competitive sector-specific regulation. The aim of this study is to determine to what an extent economic criteria are used in the assessment of the competitiveness of Polish telecommunication markets by the competition authority and the Telecoms Regulator (respectively, the President of UOKiK, and the President of UKE) in four distinct types of competition related proceedings: merger control, abuse of a dominant position, anti -competitive agreements, and sector-specific regulation. The paper presents the results of an analysis of qualitative and quantitative criteria applied in decisions (and resolutions) issued by both of the authorities in the past eleven years (2003–2013). To this end, 194 publicly available decisions were analysed.