By Ian Jones, 24 October 2000 09:00
NEWS According to the Financial Times, the Italian government was forced to convene an emergency ministerial meeting to see whether there were any legal grounds on which to restart the auction. They decided there weren't, so in a desperate attempt to fend off accusations of bungling, Italian Prime minister Guiliano Amato said the government will be taking steps to freeze Blu's $1.7bn auction deposit. The Times claims the fact that the auction only raised a relatively tiny £6.9bn is a major political problem for the centre-left government. When compared to Britain's £22bn and Germany's £30bn, it certainly seems paltry. The Times adds that as far as Blu is concerned, the pull-out has left plenty of bitterness of its own. The UK telco holds a 20 per cent stake in the operation, but the newspaper says another minority Blu grouping, which holds 48 per cent and is linked with the Benetton family, wanted BT to increase that to 50 per cent. BT said no, and the rest is now history... And staying with wireless telecoms, the Telegraph has a story which indicates the future may be no less cloudy in the UK. Both BT and One2One are each claiming compensation from the government in a court challenge over 3G rules. They say Orange and Vodafone got away with paying their 3G auction bills four months later than they had to, forcing them to incur £85m in debt interest payments as a result. The government denies that it was to blame, adding that it didn't actually award any licences to BT and One2One's competitors until Vodafone had completed the sale of Orange to France Telecom. A court decision is expected by the end of the week...
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