EE fails in legal bid to block Ofcom fee rise for airwaves
AN ATTEMPT by EE, BT’s mobile arm, to block a sharp increase in Government charges for rights to the airwaves has failed at the High Court, in a victory for the industry regulator Ofcom.
EE now faces annual licence fees of around £75m for chunks of radio spectrum originally allocated in the 1990s, three times the current price. Operators have claimed the increase could lead to price rises for consumers or hinder investment in network upgrades.
EE sought a judicial review of Ofcom’s decision after an attempt to go down the political route ended in a bitter row between the mobile industry and the Government.
Senior industry executives have accused ministers of failing to deliver on their side of a deal to improve rural mobile signals. Prior to the General Election last year, they claim the then culture secretary Sajid Javid said he would lean on the regulator to soften the licence fee increase in exchange for investment in better coverage.
Yet last September Ofcom announced it would shave less than £30m off the bill. That will mean annual fees of £200m across the sector, compared with £65m under the previous rules.
In its High Court challenge, supported by rivals O2, Three and Vodafone, EE argued that Ofcom had broken the law when setting the new fees. It said the regulator wrongly calculated the bills based only on the potential market value of the licences, and failed to con- sider the potential impact on investment. Ofcom also ignored evidence on running costs. The regulator argued it had acted as directed by the Government, and that it could not rely on the running cost evidence as it was supplied by the operators themselves.
EE said yesterday it was reviewing the judgment and considering its next course of action.