Switzerland’s Federal Administrative Court (FAC) has ruled in favor of Swisscom, setting aside an CHF 18 million (€19.3 million) fine and overturning a prior decision by the Competition Commission (COMCO) regarding the company’s fiber-optic network expansion.

The case dates back to December 2020, when COMCO launched an investigation into Swisscom’s deployment of point-to-multipoint (P2MP) network architecture and issued interim measures halting the commissioning of new P2MP connections. In December 2023, the competition regulator concluded that Swisscom had abused its market dominance through its chosen fiber topology and imposed the financial penalty. Swisscom subsequently appealed the decision to the FAC.

In its ruling, the FAC determined that Swisscom does not hold a dominant position in the relevant market as defined by COMCO. Consequently, the court held that the operator could not have infringed competition law, finding that the P2MP rollout model neither violated antitrust rules nor justified the precautionary measures previously ordered by the regulator.

Swisscom welcomed the verdict, maintaining that the P2MP topology represents a cost-effective method for rapid nationwide broadband expansion. The company noted that P2MP architecture is widely deployed across European Union member states under established regulatory frameworks.

Despite the favorable ruling, Swisscom stated that it currently continues to install new connections using point-to-point (P2P) topology while analyzing the judgment’s full implications for its ongoing infrastructure development. The company confirmed that its financial guidance for 2026 remains unchanged. The decision remains subject to a potential final appeal before the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.