Regulator misunderstood talks with JT, says Sure

The company has lodged an appeal against the Guernsey Competition and Regulatory Authority’s decision and the claims are made in its papers for the action.

Sure sets out eight major areas in which it said there were errors in procedure, law and fact in the GCRA’s decision.

‘The decision is based on a fundamental mis-characterisation of the discussions between Sure and JT,’ it said in court papers.

The GCRA concluded that JT and Sure ‘attempted to illegally control the provision of mobile networks in Guernsey’ from August 2018 until November 2019.

But, said Sure, the companies were discussing a means of delivering 5G for Guernsey and Jersey at the invitation of government.

‘The parties were not telling one another what commercial actions they planned to take in the normal course of business,’ said Sure, which is being represented by Advocate Elaine Gray.

Their discussions focused on an idea of consolidating a single telecoms network in each of Guernsey and Jersey with the other party and other operators, such as Airtel-Vodafone, having access to these networks on ‘fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms’.

These talks had come about following the publication of the Guernsey States’ future telecoms strategy in 2018 which, said Sure, looked to establish a 5G network here earlier or in line with the UK.

Collaboration had been proposed by politicians and the pan-island CI Competition and Regulatory Authorities.

‘The need for a “joined up” approach and for the telcos to work together was emphasised repeatedly,’ said Sure. It claimed that the then chairman of Cicra, Michael O’Higgins, had at least twice encouraged the firms to ‘collude’.

And Sure denied these talks were all secret, saying it briefed the Cicra board on the discussions in January 2019, and denied that it was deliberately slowing the adoption of 5G.

‘It is striking that the concerns that the GCRA has articulated in the decision dated December 2021 evidently did not occur to Cicra’s board in January 2019 when the proposals under discussion were fully and fairly described to them by Sure’s then CEO. The GCRA knew about the timetabling issues, the fact that the parties were discussing consolidated networks, and that the parties intended that third party operators such as Airtel would be granted access to any consolidated networks.’

. JT has also strenuously refuted the claims and said in December that it was considering its next steps. It declined to comment further when approached again.