UPC - EC State Aid complaint in regard to Digital Terrestrial Television

In the Minister's Brief received by Pat Rabbitte on his appointment as Minister for Communications, the following was included

· Continued liaison with the European Commission on State Aid case on foot of complaint from UPC in regard to Digital Terrestrial Television.

I've seen nothing in relation to this in the national press or on the European Commission's Competition Directorates website.

Anyone know the details of the complaint?

The only other reference I can find is UPC's own reply to the Dept's consultation on the new RTÉ Saorview channels.

As the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources (DECNR) will
be aware, UPC currently has a state aid complaint with the European Commission
with respect to certain concerns stemming from the legislative provisions related to
the funding and roll out of DTT in Ireland.

...

DCENR will be aware UPC has a state aid complaint outstanding with the European
Commission with respect the roll out and funding of a DTT service in Ireland. That
complaint was originally submitted on foot of public declarations by RTÉ with
respect to its intentions to procure and offer audiovisual content that clearly fell
outside its public service remit. It was also further to a lack of clarity in relation to the
funding of the network upgrade (of the terrestrial platform) and concerns in relation to
the allocation of spectrum arguably set at an artificially low price.

UPC’s complaint is still with the European Commission. In that context it is only fair
to say that as long as RTÉ benefits from state funding and ambiguities continue to
exist in relation to the funding of either the proposed new services or the upgrade of
the underlying network,
UPC will continue to closely monitor developments for the roll out of Saorview.

As partners in EasyTV consortium both RTÉ and UPC (indirectly) submitted a joint bid for the 4 commercial muxes back in early 2008 but when offered the chance to negotiate with the BAI to run the commercial muxes in May 2010, they decided not to proceed.

EC State Aid Complaint Procedure

The procedure

You will receive an acknowledgment of receipt of your complaint within 15 working days, and you will be informed whether there are sufficient grounds to investigate your complaint.

Your non-confidential version of the complaint may be submitted to the Member State for comments. If the Member State agrees, these comments will be transmitted to you.

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/forms/intro_en.html