Jamaica’s Fair Trading Commission (FTC) has taken legal action to prevent the approved merger of mobile operators Digicel and Claro. The FTC filed a lawsuit with the High Court this month, seeking several declarations that, if granted, would result in the scuttling of the merger and fines of USD 5 million against Digicel Jamaica and Oceanic Digital Jamaica for breach of the Fair Competition Act, the Jamaica Observer reports.

The FTC will be asking the court for an injunction to block the merger, which it claims would result in lower competition in the telecoms market. According to the lawsuit, between April 2007 when Claro entered the market, and March 2011 when the merger was announced, “customers’ benefits from competition” among the Digicel, Claro and Lime have “exceeded USD 16 billion”.

The FTC alleges that this financial benefit to customers would be reduced should the merger go through.