The CNMC opens a sanctioning file against Lyntia after its purchase of Iberdrola's fiber optic.

The National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) has stated that Lyntia Networks failed to comply with the information and monitoring conditions to which the authorization to purchase the rights of use over Iberdrola's fiber-optic network was subordinated in July 2019.

In a resolution approved by the Competition Chamber of the regulatory body on July 26, which this newspaper has access to, the entity has agreed to urge the Competition Directorate to open a sanctioning file against Lyntia due to indications of an infringement of article 62.4 c of the Competition Defense Law (LDC).

The monitoring procedure concludes that the company incurred in breaches of the duty to provide information by submitting the annual reports for the financial years 2023 and 2024 outside the deadline.

Likewise, the resolution determines that the documentation provided by Lyntia was incomplete, omitting data on unattended hiring requests and on contractual resolutions and renewals of clients.

The original operation, authorized on July 30, 2019, allowed Lyntia —owned by the funds Antin Infrastructure Partners— to acquire contracts and rights of use over the fiber-optic networks of Iberdrola España, Iberdrola Distribución Eléctrica and Iberdrola Generación.

To avoid risks to competition in the wholesale dark fiber market, the transaction was conditional on a series of commitments by the buyer during periods of five and ten years.

Among the obligations imposed was the maintenance of a non-discriminatory dark fiber offer at market prices and the guarantee of renewal of existing contracts to existing clients under equivalent conditions.

To supervise this effectiveness, Lyntia had to submit detailed data on network capacity, commercial offers, rejected requests and incidents in the contractual portfolio to the Competition Directorate annually, within the first quarter of each natural year.

According to the file instructed by the regulator, Lyntia submitted the report for the financial year 2023 on June 13, 2024, after receiving a formal request from the supervisory body.

Similarly, the documentation for the financial year 2024 was delivered on November 5, 2025, also after the deadline had expired and following insistence from the CNMC.

During the allegations phase, the company justified the delays by alleging a context of corporate reorganization and internal organizational changes, including the renewal of its management teams and legal and compliance areas.

The Competition Chamber has rejected these arguments, indicating that internal restructurings do not exempt companies from complying with the firm resolutions of the Council.

Along with the delays in delivery deadlines, the CNMC's investigations through information requests to third parties revealed substantial omissions in the content of the annual reports.

Specifically, the public operator Correos Telecom notified the regulator of 20 unattended fiber hiring requests between 2020 and 2023 that were not included in Lyntia's annual reports.

Required to do so, the company alleged that it had not been able to locate such requests in its computer systems.

Meanwhile, investigations into the client portfolio evidenced omissions in the notification of contractual terminations.

The operator Vodafone reported the resolution or non-renewal of 15 contracts, of which the CNMC verified that eight had not been included by Lyntia in its lists within the corresponding period.

Similarly, a data cross-check with the company Orange revealed the omission of another eight fiber sections canceled at the end of 2022.

Following the authority's requests, Lyntia itself sent a rectification letter in April 2025, in which it recognized 42 contractual maturities that occurred in 2023 that it had omitted by error in its previous annual report.

Despite the formal and information deficiencies, the CNMC's resolution specifies that Lyntia did comply with the material conditions of the first and second commitments, by maintaining the dark fiber offer open under reasonable market conditions and allowing the contractual renewals required by clients who requested them.

However, the CNMC Council has resolved to declare non-compliance with the third commitment (conservation and facilitation of information) and with the fourth and fifth commitments (deadlines and content of the periodic submission of data).

For this reason, the regulator has commissioned the Competition Directorate to initiate the sanctioning file and continue the monitoring tasks of the case.

This administrative resolution can be challenged by filing a contentious-administrative appeal before the National Court within two months.