Digicel Jamaica loses legal battle against LIME

Digicel Jamaica lost a long-standing legal battle to ascertain whether the Office of Utilities (OUR) has the authority power to set interconnection rates, TeleGeography CommsUpdate reports.

The U.K .-based Privy Council dismissed the telco’s appeal of an earlier Jamaican Court of Appeal decision. The Privy Council's decision confirms that OUR has the authority to determine interconnection rates between competing phone service providers.

According to the law lords, regulating interconnection issues is the essence of OUR's role as regulator. It says the law imposes on each telephone company a duty to permit other carriers to interconnect with its network. But the Privy Council contends this duty might not be properly discharged if each carrier is left to set its own interconnection charges.

Equally, it says, in the absence of a regulator's intervention, the market could be abused by a dominant service provider or by anti-competitive agreements between some service providers.