‘Fanciful’ – EE’s legal claim against Virgin Mobile given brutal rebuff by High Court
The High Court has dismissed EE’s legal claim against Virgin Mobile, describing it as “fanciful” with “no real prospect of succeeding”.
British telecoms company EE attempted to sue Virgin Mobile for a reported £24.6m over a contract dispute back in August 2022.
In a decision ruling in favour of the applicant, the court proclaimed EE’s claim was not likely to succeed due to a lack of real evidence and dismissed the case before it reached a full trial.
Justice Joanna Smith DBE, who presided over the case, ruled that EE did not argue “a consistent case” and said that key evidence presented by one of EE’s lead negotiators “really does no more than suggest that ‘something might turn up’ at trial”.
An EE spokesperson said: “We are disappointed by the court’s judgement and will now carefully review the findings before considering next steps.”
A former agreement between the companies allowed Virgin Mobile to get 5G services from another provider if they couldn’t reach a deal with BT-owned EE.
Virgin Media had secured 5G services through an agreement with Vodafone in 2019. It argued it satisfied the agreement’s requirements but BT/EE said the move away from their platforms happened before the contract formally expired.
However, the court said Virgin Mobile did nothing wrong in switching to the new provider.
Virgin Media are “pleased” with the ruling and a 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.”