Mobile phones price-fix inquiry

EU regulators are today sifting through documents seized in raids on the UK's top mobile phone firms in an investigation into alleged price-fixing of overseas "roaming" calls.

The operators - Vodafone, Orange, BT Cellnet, Virgin Mobile and One2One - along with their German counterparts, are suspected of operating a multimillion-pound cartel to rip off customers through artificially high charges.

The EU said the raids were part of an investigation launched in January 2000 into prices of "mobile roaming", when a mobile phone user makes or receives calls outside of his phone's home network.

Research by the Consumers' Association has shown that mobile calls cost as little as 10p a minute in the UK, but can rise to 15 times that figure when phoning from abroad. And users are also charged between 60p and 1.50 a minute to receive calls when they are overseas.

Yesterday's early morning swoops resulted in the seizure of files and computer disks from head offices in both countries.

If they provide EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti with evidence of the alleged scam, companies could be punished with large fines.

A spokesman said: "We raided all British and all German mobile telephony operators as part of our wide-ranging inquiry into roaming charges. We want to verify if the companies have colluded in illegal price fixing."

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