[SBP]Eircom pressured ComReg on 3G deal

viking

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=MARKETS-qqqs=themarket-qqqid=13300-qqqx=1.asp

09 April 2006 By David Clerkin

Telecoms regulator ComReg came under sustained pressure from lawyers for Eircom in the weeks before it withdrew the country’s final third-generation (3G) mobile-phone licence from Smart Telecom. High Court documents show Eircom twice instructed its lawyers, Arthur Cox, to write to ComReg requesting that Smart be stripped of the 3G licence in favour of the former state-owned monopoly.

Smart won the lucrative licence over Eircom last November, but ComReg withdrew the licence in February, in a dispute over performance bonds that were to guarantee that Smart would roll out its new network in line with the licence terms.

According to an affidavit filed by Eircom commercial director David McRedmond, Eircom’s lawyers wrote to ComReg on December 20, five weeks after the licence was awarded, claiming that Smart had failed to meet certain conditions attached to the licence and asking ComReg to offer the licence to Eircom.

On February 7, a week before the licence was withdrawn, Eircom’s lawyers sent a second letter ‘‘articulating Eircom’s concerns as to whether Smart had complied with the requirements of the tender process insofar as financial payments and the crucial matter of performance bonds was concerned’’, McRedmond said in the affidavit.

The affidavit said Eircom had sent another letter to ComReg ‘‘to gain an understanding of the reasons for the decision and, in particular, the reasons why Eircom’s tender had not been ranked first in the comparative evaluation process’’. McRedmond said Eircom was ‘‘extremely surprised and equally disappointed’’ to have lost the race for ‘‘an extremely valuable asset’’.

He said ComReg’s power to award the licence should be viewed as a duty ‘‘vested in it for the public interest’’ and that it wanted to participate in the current legal proceedings between ComReg and Smart because there were issues of public law at stake.

The affidavit also stated that Eircom was suffering a disadvantage because of the delay in awarding the licence and the legal proceedings that were underway. ’‘Further, and far more significant, prejudice to Eircom would, of course, arise, in the event that Smart was successful.”

zuma

Hardly a shocking announcement.

If you pump masses of money into your legal department and strip the infrastructure your always going to win!

damien

If Smart lose then the regulator looks like a jackass for giving them the licence. eircom could also sue for loss of earnings if the licence is then handed to them. Also there'll be a few issues about the tendering process for the licence again. Are eircom automatically entitled to this 3G licence?

If Smart wins then the regulator looks like a jackass for not knowing what they're doing.

Lose lose for Comreg.

TimTim

damien.m wrote:

Lose lose for Comreg.

So nothing is really changed then has it?