Spain’s National Court has rejected a bid by Telefónica, Orange and Vodafone to recover more than €1.6 billion they paid to help fund the public broadcaster RTVE.
El Pais reports that this is the latest in a series of defeats they have suffered in a long-running legal dispute following the withdrawal of adverting on RTVE in 2010.
Since then, they have been required to contribute 0.9% of their income to help finance the public broadcaster.
Both the Constitutional Court and EU’s Court of Justice have previously ruled against the three operators.