Chile’s Supreme Court has confirmed a ruling against the former Canal del Fútbol (CDF), now operating as TNT Sports, for abusing its dominant position in the market for live broadcasts of the National Professional Football Championship. The Court upheld a fine of 32,000 Annual Tax Units (UTA), equivalent to more than 28 million US dollars, the largest penalty ever imposed in Chile for a competition law violation.
The decision also expands the scope of the original ruling issued by the Tribunal for the Defense of Free Competition (TDLC) in May 2024. In addition to maintaining the fine, the Court sided with the National Economic Prosecutor’s Office (FNE), ordering an immediate end to a series of commercial practices it deemed anticompetitive. Among these were two additional measures not originally prohibited by the TDLC: the imposition of minimum resale prices and restrictions on promotional campaigns that cable operators could offer for CDF Premium and HD channels.
According to the Supreme Court, CDF’s behavior not only restricted downstream competition but also harmed consumers by artificially controlling pricing and limiting promotional flexibility. The ruling found that forcing cable operators to bundle the CDF Básico channel with premium content, regardless of consumer demand, and requiring minimum guaranteed subscriber numbers, amounted to an abuse of dominance. These measures allowed CDF to extract inflated and discriminatory revenues from operators, particularly penalizing those with fewer premium subscribers.
The Court emphasized that each of these practices, whether taken individually or as a whole, clearly demonstrated anticompetitive intent and effects. It noted that such conduct interfered with normal market dynamics by suppressing price competition and blocking more affordable offers from reaching the public.
The FNE initially brought its complaint in December 2020, after a long-running investigation revealed that CDF had embedded these provisions into its contracts as early as 2006. By that time, CDF held commercial relationships with cable providers representing more than 90 percent of Chile’s pay-TV subscriber base.
A key element of the case was whether some of the contested conduct was subject to statutory limits. The Court ruled that since the practices were ongoing and continuously enforced, the limitation period had not yet begun, reinforcing the legal classification of the conduct as continuing in nature.
In assessing the financial penalty, the TDLC had previously calculated that between July 2017 and December 2020, CDF accrued nearly 900,000 Unidades de Fomento (UF) in extra profit from its minimum guarantee scheme alone. The fine was adjusted to reflect the months in which the company did not benefit financially, and an additional amount was added to ensure deterrence, as provided under Chile’s competition law.
The Supreme Court’s decision was praised by Jorge Grunberg, Chile’s National Economic Prosecutor, who called it a milestone in the country’s enforcement against abuse of market power. “This ruling sends a powerful signal about the seriousness of anticompetitive behavior. It confirms the highest individual sanction ever imposed in a competition case in Chile,” he said.
CDF had appealed the TDLC ruling, arguing that the contested provisions were lawful and that any potential liability had expired. The Supreme Court rejected these arguments, affirming the company’s dominant market position and ordering it to immediately end all prohibited practices.
