CityFibre responds to ruling from the Competition Appeal Tribunal

Commenting on the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s decision, Greg Mesch, Chief Executive Officer of CityFibre, said: “Whilst the CAT has dismissed the appeal, and we have always recognised that the threshold for a successful judicial review of a regulator’s decision is a high hurdle, the CAT has made significant criticisms of Ofcom.

It has stated that Ofcom's consultation process could have been improved. Ofcom failed to appreciate that infrastructure competitors would have had information highly relevant to its assessment despite that information being important for the purposes of securing investment. The CAT has also criticised Ofcom for its failure to provide clear and consistent guidance to those making very significant investment commitments on the basis of Ofcom’s policy decisions.

The CAT’s conclusion expressly encourages Ofcom to ‘maintain careful scrutiny of the market at this important time’ to ensure that any decisions it makes deliver real competition.

We are sure that Ofcom will take careful note of the CAT’s comments. Ofcom must now be proactive in scrutinising any future Openreach offers if it is to sustain and protect investment in infrastructure competition.”