14 DAY TRIAL // Orange has lost a battle in France, where its exclusivity to sell the iPhone has been revoked. The contract that tied Apple and Orange was arguable from the start, but now that issue has been solved by the Competition Council, which, after a closer review of the situation, decided to take measures against such a collaboration.
The contract that the two companies had signed wasn’t to the benefit of France, as the Competition Council argued. The decision was appealed by Orange to the Court of Appeal of Paris, but this did not stop rumors from surfacing, stating that this whole situation had been premeditated.
The logic behind these rumors is that the complaint, filed by Bouygues Telecom, might be some kind of scam, since the company in question is the last one in France to release its 3G network, and that the company did not actually have that many reasons to make such a complaint. In addition, since this “grief” has come just at the end of the year, and long after the contract was signed, other rumors are trying to imply that this event development took place because Apple and Orange were not that happy with the deal anymore. In any case, the claims above are of debatable certainty and for now cannot be really taken seriously since no proof in this regard is available.
In any case, the Competition Council motivated its decision by saying that the exclusivity was not to the advantage of the mobile industry or the clients in any way. Furthermore, other extremely correct arguments speak of the contract between the two companies as an action that reduces the competition between operators, thus also reducing the advantages the clients might be enjoying. Even more, if the exclusivity was to continue, then Orange would have become jaded on the matter, whereas when competition comes into play, the companies need to work harder and offer more applications and services and reduce the prices considerably in order to become market leaders, for example.
On top of that, any mobile operating company favored by an exclusivity deal is more likely to be regarded by mobile manufacturers as a better option than the others. In order to give more meaning to the previous affirmations, here's one of the declarations of the Council: "The injunction issued is that the iPhone products are marketed exclusively by Orange but can be by any other operator wishing to build a terminal with this offer."
Even more, the Council argued uncontroversially "the circumvention of exclusivity that can not remain marginal and can not moderate the impact [on] the market and consumers."