Kosc counter-attacks before the Council of State
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.
Source : DegroupNews