NBTC under fire for dragging its feet on DTAC-True merger

Prinya Thaewanarumitkul, a law professor at Thammasat University, said the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) should perform its legal duty as the regulatory agency.

He said the NBTC has the duty to prevent a monopoly in the market and therefore it should take action when the telecom market would have only two players following the planned merger between DTAC and True.

Prinya said he was puzzled that the NBTC had recently consulted the Council of State, the government’s legal advisory agency, regarding the matter.

“The NBTC has the authority to decide whether to approve a merger that would control more than 50 per cent of the market,” the law professor said.

He was speaking at a panel discussion at Thammasat University’s Tha Phrachan campus jointly organised by the Law Faculty and Thailand’s Consumers Council on Wednesday.

Assoc Prof Narongdech Srukhosit, from Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Law, said at the event that the NBTC should take into account public interest when making its decision regarding the planned mega-merger, as telecom frequencies are a limited national resource.

“The NBTC has to think of the public interest, particularly the fact that there would be only two telecom service providers after this merger,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chatra Kamsaeng, director of 101 PUB, which describes itself as a “public policy think tank”, said he wondered why the NBTC was seeking advice from the Council of State even after the Administrative Court had ruled that it has the legal power to decide on the matter.

“There must be some reason that the law would be interpreted to benefit certain groups of people at the cost of public interest,” he said.

Sirikanya Tansakun, an MP from the opposition Move Forward Party, told the panel discussion that the NBTC appeared to have no confidence in its legal authority and no courage in exercising its power.

“Thai society has to realise why the NBTC’s executive board still seeks advice from the Council of State even after the Administrative Court had ruled that it has legal power to make an order about business mergers,” Sirikanya said.

She sits on the House tasked with studying impacts of telecom business mergers.