The Supreme Court’s decision sounds the death knell for a long-running case between two cell phone operators and a consumer network in Mali.
The country’s highest judicial institution, confirmed on Monday 13 March the conviction of telephone operators
Moov Africa Malitel and Orange Mali to pay 176 billion CFA francs to the Network of Telecommunications Consumers of Mali (RECOTEM).
The sentence was pronounced since November 2021 by the Court of Appeal in Bamako.
This ruling by the Supreme Court is the epilogue to a long legal procedure between the two main telecommunications operators and the ‘Reseau des Consommateurs des Telecommunications du Mali’ (Telecom
Consumer Network).
On November 3, 2021, the Bamako Court of Appeal sentenced Moov Africa Malitel and Orange Mali to pay the respective sums of 56,548,552,470 CFA francs and 115,388,400,890 CFA francs for “billing the answering machine following customers’ phone calls.”
The two operators were also required to pay 1,500,000,000 CFA francs in damages to RECOTEM.
In total, it is the sum of 176 billion FCFA that the two telephone operators were supposed to pay.
But they had contested this judgment, which was put under advisement on February 28 and decided by the Supreme Court on March 13.
The court confirmed the conviction of the two telephone operators for charging users for answering
machines.
The judgments are without appeal.
What is certain is that this conviction will have an impact on the telecommunications sector.
These operators bring in at least 200 billion CFA francs a year to the Malian state in terms of taxes. In addition to this situation, there are other requests from the authorities to deal with certain emergencies.
This conviction is the first in the telecommunications sector in Mali.
It is a victory for consumers, especially when we know that users in Mali have often complained about the quality of networks and the high cost of some services compared to other countries in the sub-region.
In 2012, the same consumer protection association filed a complaint against one of the telephone operators for charging exorbitant fees for answering machines.
The Malian Telecommunications/ICT and Post Regulatory Authority (AMRTP), the sector’s watchdog, had concluded that this billing was “legal,” judging it to be “in line with the principle of tariff freedom provided for by the regulations in force and that it does not violate any opinion or decision of the regulator.”
For AMRTP, this billing is “regular because the cost of the second, which is charged at 1.8 CFA francs TTC actually corresponds to the rate regulated by AMRTP, namely 108 CFA francs TTC per minute.”
It is in these terms that the court had dismissed this association in charge of the defense of consumers.
In 2021, the association appealed to the Bamako Court of Appeal, which bypassed AMRTP by appointing an independent expert, hence the conviction of the two telephone operators to pay the amount of 176 billion FCFA.
MD/ac/fss/as/APA