OPTA imposes a penalty on KPN in the Denda case

By imposing a conditional penalty on KPN, OPTA hopes to compel the latter to supply its subscribers’ details to Denda Multimedia within several days. The latter requires this information in order to publish a telephone directory on CD-ROM. As of 10 November KPN will be required to pay a penalty of NLG 16,500.00 for every day that it fails to surrender these details. This amount is based on the anticipated loss of earnings which Denda will suffer if it does not have this information.

At the end of September OPTA, the regulatory authority for the postal and telecommunications markets, ruled that KPN was required to supply its subscribers’ details to Denda subject to certain conditions. For instance, KPN may not charge more than half a cent for the details of each subscriber, nor may it stipulate requirements in respect of the purpose for which the information is to be used.

KPN was given two weeks within which to supply those details to Denda, which the latter had requested. Since KPN failed to do so, Denda filed a complaint with OPTA. The latter now wants to force KPN to provide the relevant data to Denda by means of a conditional penalty.

KPN has advanced the absence of a licensing agreement between itself and Denda as the most important reason for not supplying the details. However, the Telecommunications Act does not stipulate that the supply of subscriber details is conditional on the existence of such an agreement. This argument consequently did not give OPTA any reason not to impose a conditional penalty on KPN.