The appeals lodged by Priartem and Agir pour l'environnement have just been rejected by the Council of State. The administrative judge considers that the character of urgency is not fulfilled and will rule on the merits of the case in the summer of 2020.

Four appeals had been filed in mid-February 2020 in which the two associations requested the immediate suspension of the decree setting the conditions for the allocation of 5G frequencies and the decree organising the tender procedure. They criticized the lack of an environmental assessment prior to deployment and its environmental and health consequences.

The National Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (Anses) made similar criticisms in its preliminary report published at the end of February 2020. It explained that it regretted the lack of statistical data on the health effects of exposure to certain frequencies used by 5G.

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Source : L'Usine Digitale

Kosc was unsuccessful against Altice and contested the decision taken by the Competition Authority. Indeed, seized on the occasion of the sale of Completel's copper network, the competition police last week issued its verdict: "there is nothing to define that Altice has committed a fault with regard to its obligations".

This is a major blow for the wholesale provider of telecom services to operators in the enterprise market, which has been denouncing SFR's parent company's late deliveries for months. This decision is all the more difficult to accept as its financial equation has become significantly more complicated.

But the operator does not intend to stop there since he "rejects", in a press release, the verdict of the Competition Authority and announces that he will bring the case before the Conseil d'État. A referral "motivated by the numerous irregularities that have marked the follow-up of the case by the Competition Authority, including the unexplained duration of its investigation in a context of urgency and the probable violation of its secrecy".

In addition, the company believes that the abandonment of Banque des Territoires (Caisse des Dépôts group), one of its main supporters, can only be explained by an understanding of the result favourable to Altice - SFR upstream.

Kosc warns against a prospect of consolidation that it now considers itself the "privileged target of a hostile acquisition" in view of its financial fragility. An operation that would "de facto close the business telecommunications market to the detriment not only of the ecosystem of hundreds of digital business service operators but also of the beginning of catching up on the digitalisation backlog of French SMEs and VSEs", warns the operator.

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Source : DegroupNews

The incumbent operator has submitted a Priority Question of Constitutionality to the Council of State, which can thus deprive the telecom police of its sanctioning powers and render the operators' commitments ineffective.

Unveiled on Tuesday by Le Monde, this request challenges the legal validity of a formal notice sent to it by Arcep last January. Indeed, the regulator criticized Orange for not respecting its obligations towards other telecom operators when it makes its fixed networks available to them. For the time being, this request is only at the preliminary stage. It will only be examined by the "Wise Men" of the Constitutional Council if the Council of State decides to transfer the file to it.

But in reality, it is a much broader problem. The incumbent operator argues that Arcep is both judge and party at the same time and that there is too much permeability between its three missions: to enact rules for the market, to control telecom operators and also to sanction them in the event of non-compliance with their obligations.
The regulator would de facto be deprived of its power to impose sanctions if the Conseil d'État were to rule in favour of the operator. In short, if the Arcep can no longer sanction abuses, the shipyards will fall behind and the objectives to boost French access to very high speed will not be met.

Orange assures that the procedure is a legal issue and will not affect the commitments made. The operator points out that in 2013 the Arcep has already been deprived of its power to impose sanctions in a similar procedure.
 

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Source : Les Echos