MONTREAL – Bell Canada’s ExpressVu must pay $137 million to Videotron and TVA for failing to prevent the piracy of its satellite signals in Quebec, the Quebec Court of Appeal has ruled.
The unanimous ruling upheld a lower court decision issued in July 2012 which awarded $600,000 in damages to the two Quebecor subsidiaries. The actions stem from allegations made by Quebecor that Bell failed to prevent the piracy of its Bell ExpressVu satellite television service between 1999 and 2005.
Friday’s court decision ordered Bell to pay $82.3 million to Videotron and $404,000 to TVA Group, which includes interest and experts’ fees.
“We welcome this judgement, which condemns practices by Bell that had the effect of depriving its competitors, including Videotron and TVA Group, of customers and substantial revenues over a period of more than six years,” said Quebecor president and CEO Pierre Dion, in a statement Monday. “This is a landmark decision and an historic event for the telecommunications industry, a ruling that sheds some light on how Bell did harm to other industry players.”
