
OTTAWA – The Federal Court of Appeal has rejected a complaint lodged by some of Canada’s biggest wireless service providers over a deadline date in the CRTC’s Wireless Code of Conduct.
In a decision issued Tuesday, Justice Denis Pelletier dismissed a challenge filed by Bell, Rogers, Telus, MTS and SaskTel over the June 3, 2015 final implementation date of the Code, referred to as “the drop-dead date”, whereby all existing wireless contracts fall subject to the Code.
Noting the high number of three-year wireless contracts that would not yet have matured by that date, the telcos claimed that they would be unable to collect early cancellation fees or recover their device subsidies on those contracts, should the wireless customers chose to cancel before their contract's maturity date.
They appealed the CRTC’s imposition of a drop-dead date on the ground that it is beyond the Commission’s “jurisdiction to make retrospective rules or to interfere with vested rights.”
After hearing the appeal last November, the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed the carriers’ challenge and ordered them to pay unspecified legal costs.