A High Court judge has described a legal claim by EE against Virgin Mobile as “fanciful” and told the BT-owned operator its claim has “no real prospect of succeeding”.
Justice Joanna Smith DBE ruled in favour of Virgin in the case that relates to a former MVNO agreement with BT. EE made the original claim in August 2022 arguing there had been a breach of contract.
The agreement with BT/EE stated that if EE launched 5G services to its own customers and could not reach a commercial agreement with Virgin Media about 5G services within a specified then Virgin was permitted to procure 5G services from an alternative supplier. Virgin signed a new agreement with Vodafone in 2019.
The only requirement within the EE agreement was that the customer was provided with 5G services, which Virgin says was satisfied by providing customers with a 5G-capable SIM. It couldn’t guarantee if the customer actually inserted the SIM into a suitable phone.
A Virgin Media spokesperson said: “We’ve always been very clear that we fully honoured our former mobile agreement with BT while giving our customers access to 5G as soon as possible. We’re pleased that the court has ruled in our favour and summarily dismissed EE’s claim against us.”
Subsequently, the June 2021 merger with O2 enabled customers with a 5G enabled SIM to be migrated to the O2 network, a process that will be completed by the end of this year.
