Historical operator

Any agent who has an economic activity in a space can be qualified as an "operator". Competition Law sees this as the very definition of "business". In this respect, Competition Law “neutralizes” anything specific that the agent may have, for example the fact that it is the State itself, since in a simply competitive market, any operator is is worth. Thus, a dominant operator is not monitored as such. Likewise, the neutrality of capital means that a public operator is not subject to a special regime.

In Regulatory Law, on the contrary, we seek to qualify operators to determine their specific function in the balance between competition and other principles. This is the case with the "incumbent".

The historical operator is the one and present at the time of the liberalization of the sector. In this, by nature, it is the obstacle to the realization of competition, the principle of which is laid down by the liberalization law and the realization of which comes up against the very fact of the power of the incumbent operator.

This is why asymmetric regulation is implemented by the Regulator. It will consist in harming the incumbent operator, in a way that is nonetheless impartial because it is not a question of making effective the competition, the development of which is the finality of liberalization, by depriving it of its so-called "grandfather" advantages. for the benefit of new entrants.

Experience shows that in fact, incumbent operators remain, particularly in network industries, more powerful than new entrants. This is due to the fact that the formerly monopolistic national incumbents are reconstituting their power by making agreements between them.

The great interest of these three qualifications is that they are not legal but economic and therefore make it possible to regulate adequately, even if the operator is not expressly the operator in title of the network, to take its place directly and of its role in the sector.