Commission throws out Esat rival's complaint

A COMPLAINT by a rival consortium about the handling of the award of the second mobile phone licence to Esat Digifone has been…

A COMPLAINT by a rival consortium about the handling of the award of the second mobile phone licence to Esat Digifone has been thrown out by the European Commission.

Persona, which included the ESB, Motorola, Unisource and Sigma Wireless, complained last April. However, the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Mr Dukes, said yesterday that the Commission had informed him on Monday that the complaint had not been upheld.

Mr Dukes said the Commission had ruled that the had been lack of transparency in awarding the licence and no rules had been breached. It is understood that the Commission also said that the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications had no case to answer and the file was now closed.

There had been widespread dissatisfaction, mainly by the unsuccessful bidders, at the manner in which the Department awarded the contract. Mr Duke's predecessor, Mr Michael Lowry, and the Department always maintained that the process had" been "squeaky clean".