JUDGMENT was reserved in the High Court yesterday in a case an English company is taking against Telecom Eireann over "vanity" phone numbers. Mr Justice Kelly reserved judgment in the action by the Zockoll Group Ltd, DynoRod plc and Phone Names Ltd, Surbiton, Surrey, against Bord Telecom Eireann, Dublin.
Zockoll seeks injunctions and damages arising from its claim that Telecom withdrew eight "freefone 1-800 numbers", allocated some of those numbers to other entities and refused its application for 270 other vanity numbers. The company contends that Telecom's decisions constituted an abuse of its dominant position in the market for the supply or allocation of phone numbers.
Mr Michael Collins SC, for Zockoll, said it was a breach of contract case in which a contract for eight numbers was in question. Telecom had the burden of proof and had to show some contractual provision which justified it withdrawing the number. If it failed to do that, then Zockoll succeeded. The same was true for the application for 270 numbers.
Zockoll claimed Telecom's decisions were irrational and were taken on the basis of an allegation that the group was brokering phone numbers in the UK which, if done in Ireland, would be illegal. This was wrong in fact and in law.
Telecom claimed that Zockoll had not yet made any plans in relation to developing the Irish franchise market. The decision to withdraw the original eight numbers was taken because Telecom had reason to suspect Zockoll would broker these numbers, which entailed selling or renting on a number which had previously been rented from Telecom.
In the wake of the Zockoll litigation, a policy was emerging whereby vanity numbers were given only to a company with a bonafide interest in such numbers; for example, 1-800 BALLOON had been given to a balloon company.
Regarding the request for 270 additional numbers, no satisfactory evidence had been advanced which would demonstrate that those numbers were legitimately required for Zockoll's businesses. The demand suggested that Zockoll was proposing to broker the numbers and was seeking to acquire a "landbank" of numbers for reasons other than immediate or prospective legitimate business or personal use.
The court was told on behalf of Zockoll that it was the parent company of a large group of wholly owned subsidiary companies which created and developed franchises in areas such as drain cleaning, security services, plumbing, roofing and glazing service. Each of the businesses was started by Zockoll through a subsidiary company by creating a brand name for the particular service. The original brand created by Zockoll was DynoRod.
Zockoll recognised that a brand name could be created from phone numbers if phones were fitted with alphanumeric keypads, with each of the numbers on the phone key pad converted into letters. For instance, 1-800 276537 converted into 1-800 BROKER.