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| BTL Bests Smart In Court | | Thu, March 31, 2011 | | | In November of 2009 -it made headlines when BTL pulled the plug on SMART's international long distance service - which went through BTL's switch. SMART cried foul, and complained to the court that BTL was abusing its position as the dominant provider in the market.
BTL said it was only protecting its own economic interests after SMART had been given a low cost connection when Telemedia was under previous management - management which Telemedia claims exercised common control of both phone companies.
The case went to court - and after exhaustive hearings by two high court judges, and testimony from international experts, Justice Oswell Legall issued a judgment today saying that BTL did not abuse its market position, it was simply protecting its economic interests.
Legall notably dismissed the testimony from international experts for both companies saying he attaches no weight to their opinion, because they did not carry out any market or economic analysis.
But he found that SMART had failed to prove that BTL took advantage of its power.
The reason that BTL pulled the plug, Legall found, was not to damage SMARt but to take care of Telemedia's business by correcting a situation that gave an economic advantage to SMART.
SPEEDNET, SMART's parent company must pay costs and the claims are dismissed.
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