Austria’s highest administrative court has rejected T-Mobile Austria’s appeal against the multi-band 4G auction in October 2013. T-Mobile has said the tender, which raised more than €2bn for the state, suffered from a lack of transparency leading…
Austria’s highest administrative court has rejected T-Mobile Austria’s appeal against the multi-band 4G auction in October 2013.
T-Mobile has said the tender, which raised more than €2bn for the state, suffered from a lack of transparency leading to inflated prices, and asked for the process to be re-run.
The court has, however, ruled that the process was proper.
In a statement today, T-Mobile said that while it was disappointed with the decision it was happy to have the frequencies.
The operator’s CEO, Andreas Bierwirth, said the royalties received by Austria for the spectrum was an EU record, more than five times the amount paid in Germany and four times as much as what Switzerland raised for comparative spectrum.
Bierwirth argued that the amount Austrian operators had to pay endangered investment in the country, but said the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary would now move on and continue to build out its network.
Hutchison Whampoa’s local unit, Drei, had also appealed against the auction process but dropped its legal action against the government in late June. Its decision came after it was signalled that some of the proceeds from the tender, about €1bn, would be invested in broadband infrastructure.
Following today’s decision, Drei CEO Jan Troinow said that now there is a legal certainty concerning the auction proceeds, policy makers should fulfil their promises and prove that they care about fast, efficient and pro-competitive broadband rollout in rural areas.
Meanwhile, Bierwirth said he expected a rapid implementation of the government’s promised investment.
T-Mobile spent €650m in the auction while Hutchison paid €330m for frequencies. America Movil-owned Telekom Austria, which did not complain about the process, spent €1.03bn.
