Telus has lost its legal challenge against the Federal government’s wireless policy, essentially ending the former’s attempts to acquire Mobilicity, reports the Wall Street Journal:
“The most that can be said is that Telus made a business gamble and lost,” according to the court decision. “It is not the minister’s fault.”
The judge ordered Telus to pay the government’s legal costs of $12,000. Meanwhile, the government applauded the decision, citing:
“We have always been clear in our policies that we would not approve spectrum transfer requests that decrease competition in the wireless sector,” a government spokesman said. He added the government doesn’t publicly comment on private business transactions but said “the court ruling speaks for itself.”
Telus took the government to court in July of last year, questioning at the time whether “the minister actually has the legal right to require his personal approval of changes of control of a company,” referring to how the latter had overturned the wireless carrier’s bid to acquire startup Mobilicity.
The position of Telus is it believes the government misled wireless carriers when it decided to permanently extend the original five year ban on incumbents acquiring spectrum from wireless startups such as Mobilicity.
In the beginning of this year, Telus similarly lost a legal battle against Ottawa over the latter’s 700MHz spectrum rules, which included set-aside spectrum for new wireless startups and also limited the amount incumbents could purchase.
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