Finance

Corporate rivalry in Bangladesh’s telecom sector is nothing new. Operators have long competed fiercely on price, network quality, and subscriber acquisition. But 2025 saw that rivalry erupt not through marketing campaigns, but through formal complaints, regulatory challenges, and court petitions.

Such open legal confrontation of this kind is rare in the industry, comprising one of the largest subscriber bases in South Asia.

The disputes drew in three separate institutions – the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), the Bangladesh Competition Commission (BCC), and the High Court.

They touched on issues ranging from predatory pricing and brand misuse to the validity of a regulatory framework designed to check the dominance of the market’s largest player.

None of the cases reached a definitive conclusion by year-end. But together, they raised questions about competitive fairness, regulatory capacity, and the direction of an industry navigating a more difficult operating environment.

ANTI-COMPETITIVE COMPLAINTS

The first and most significant legal action of last year came on January 21, when Robi Axiata, the country’s second-largest operator, filed a formal complaint with the BCC, accusing Grameenphone (GP), the country’s largest operator, of abusing its dominant market position through predatory pricing and excessive SIM subsidies.

Robi said such alleged practices violated the Competition Act 2012, claiming GP “continues to disrupt the natural course of competition in the mobile telecom sector to maintain its dominant position.”

The allegation carried weight given GP’s scale: the operator leads the market in subscribers, revenue, and profit by a considerable margin, and has been formally designated a Significant Market Power (SMP) operator by the BTRC since 2019.

Robi’s complaint argued that GP’s commercial practices made genuine competition difficult to sustain and narrowed the prospects for new market entrants.

Banglalink filed a broadly similar complaint in the months that followed.

Grameenphone rejected the allegations. It told The Daily Star that it has a publicly declared maximum retail price of Tk 350 per SIM card and does not sell SIMs below cost.

Any discounts, it said, are offered independently by retailers. The operator also defended its commission structure, citing higher investment and regulatory costs.

The defence was technically straightforward, but the underlying grievance, that the market’s profit distribution has become heavily skewed toward a single operator, remained alive.

When the BCC opened an investigation into the allegations, GP challenged its jurisdiction. By December, the High Court had stayed the inquiry.

AIRTEL BRANDING DISPUTE

As the BCC complaint wound through the system, GP, in an apparent tit-for-tat move, opened a second front.

In September, it wrote to the BTRC alleging that Robi’s continued use of the Airtel brand violated conditions attached to the regulator’s approval of Robi’s 2016 merger with Airtel Bangladesh. Grameenphone argued that Robi’s ongoing use of the Airtel brand misled consumers and allowed the operator to unfairly benefit from Airtel’s established global reputation.

Banglalink joined with its own complaint in October, “in public interest”, adding a more specific allegation: that Robi continued to issue SIM cards under Airtel’s old 016 number series without any publicly documented regulatory approval to do so – potentially in breach of a merger condition that barred such use beyond two years.

Both GP and Banglalink urged the BTRC to investigate, citing its mandate under the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Act, 2001.

Robi dismissed both complaints. Its Chief Corporate and Regulatory Officer, Shahed Alam, said the dual-brand arrangement had been formally approved by both the BTRC and the telecom ministry, and that no regulation barred an operator from running multiple brands.

BTRC Chairman Maj Gen (retd) Md Emdad ul Bari told The Daily Star the regulator would proceed “based on the law” – a formulation that left the matter unresolved heading into the new year.

GP CHALLENGES REGULATORY CONSTRAINTS

The most consequential legal development of the year, however, concerned GP’s challenge to the SMP framework – the regulatory architecture introduced in 2018 specifically to prevent monopolistic behaviour by any operator exceeding a 40 percent threshold in subscribers, revenue, or spectrum.

Under the framework, GP faces three specific obligations: prior regulatory approval before launching new service campaigns, a shortened lock-in period for customers porting in under the mobile number portability facility, and a reduced inter-operator call charge of Tk 0.07 per minute against the standard Tk 0.10.

GP had challenged the original SMP designation in 2019 and lost. Its 2025 writ, which described the regulatory decision as “arbitrary and unlawful,” fared better.

The High Court granted a three-month stay on SMP enforcement, temporarily suspending all three obligations and restoring the standard Tk 0.10 inter-operator rate.

The BTRC signalled it would contest the order.

Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Tanveer Mohammad said the company had sought regulatory review multiple times before moving to court.

WHY SUDDEN FLARE IN LEGAL BATTLES

The legal issues, though rare, largely stem from an “imbalanced” regulatory field and anti-competitive behaviours, say Robi and Banglalink, hinting towards GP’s dominance.

Robi Axiata CEO Ziad Shatara told The Daily Star that the company views the situation differently from some of its competitors and prefers to resolve disputes outside the courts whenever possible.

“But when we cannot reach an agreement, we go to court to seek an opinion on what the appropriate solution should be. I don’t see this as a bad thing. It is a stand we believe in, and we want to pursue our rights.”

Responding to questions about the concentration of profitability in the hands of a single operator, Shatara said, “There is no doubt that the situation in Bangladesh is more biased towards one operator compared to others,” he said.

He added that the regulator now has an opportunity to take stronger enforcement measures to correct market imbalances.

Johan Buse, chief executive officer of Banglalink, in an interview last year, told The Daily Star that regulatory imbalance has left one operator dominating profits in Bangladesh.

“In every country, there is always a number one operator with around 50 percent of the market. But never have I seen before that they have 90 percent of the profit. That is the issue here.”

Buse said, “If that persists, the other operators have a very difficult conversation with their investors. We are all part of international groups. Investment goes where returns are best. Bangladesh needs to make itself more attractive as an investment destination.”

However, GP CEO Yasir Azman rejected that there was any regulatory favouritism toward the operator.

“Any narrative that suggests that the regulatory landscape in Bangladesh favours a single player is not only unfounded but ignores the reality of the SMP regime under which Grameenphone operates,” he said.

“Far from being biased in our favour, the current regulatory framework imposes stringent SMP restrictions that actively stifle Grameenphone’s ability to innovate and bring new services to market,” he added.

He went on to say that these constraints penalise efficiency and limit the choices available to Bangladeshi consumers. “Under these strict regulations, GP operates in full compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, and we believe any disputes should be addressed through established and appropriate legal and regulatory processes.”

Azman also stated that GP’s market leadership is not a regulatory outcome, but rather a direct result of the company’s investment in infrastructure, operational excellence, and trust of customers.

“While some operators have chosen to pursue some matters through complaints or legal avenues, we believe such issues will be resolved transparently, without any negative impact on innovations, customer experience and service continuity“ he added.

Telecom expert Abu Nazam M Tanveer Hossain offered a broader reading of the year’s legal activity.

Noting that the sector is moving from a growth phase to a more mature, competitive one, he said, “In such an environment, market-share gains are no longer driven by organic subscriber growth, but by taking revenue from competitors.”

He said operators generally have two constructive paths to do that: first, sustained capex and opex to deliver a clearly superior network experience; second, differentiated services and new propositions that increase customer value and stickiness.

“What we are seeing instead is a rising preference for a third path: using legal and regulatory forums to constrain competitors, create uncertainty, and reallocate portions of the revenue pool. This is often a symptom of a market where reinvestment is cautious, and innovation is limited, while short-term commercial pressure remains high,” he added.

https://www.thedailystar.net/business/economy/news/legal-fights-heat-telecom-sector-4109576