BT and One2One claim they lost £80 million in interest payments because the government required them to pay for the first instalments of their multi-billion pound licence bids in May 2000, four months earlier than both Vodafone and Orange, each of which paid in September.
When the 3G auction took place last year, Vodafone owned Mannesmann, the parent company of Orange. The auction rules required that no single operator could own more than one licence. Accordingly, although the government allowed both Vodafone and Orange to win licences, the deal could not complete until Orange had been sold to France Telecom, hence the four month delay in payment. The government argues that the auction was “fair to all parties and complied with all legal requirements.”
The appeal follows the High Court’s rejection of the claims from BT and One2One in December last year.