OTTAWA – Bell Canada has applied to appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) the CRTC Decision 2019-427, that found Bell guilty of undue preference.
“The Commission finds that Bell (…) has conferred an undue preference upon RDS, its discretionary sports service, and has subjected the service TVA Sports to an undue disadvantage by packaging the two services in a different manner,” the CRTC Decision reads, which we covered in December.
The main argument Bell brings forward in its motion is that in a 2018 Final Offer Arbitration (FOA) “The CRTC accepted Bell’s final offer, which was based on the number of TVA Sports subscribers and Bell’s existing packaging. The accepted fee structure did not adjust for volume or penetration, or for the packaging differences. Québecor sought leave to appeal the 2018 FOA, which was denied by the Federal Court of Appeal. Any alleged undue disadvantage or preference was therefore fully and finally resolved in the CRTC’s FOA decision, released in 2018.”
Bell argues Quebecor’s motive is to circumvent the 2018 FOA but that the CRTC dismissed that argument in a single paragraph stating that” on the sole ground that packaging was not considered in the 2018 FOA despite the 2018 FOA explicitly referring to packaging as a “key factor.”
Bell has also brought an application for judicial review, in the event this motion for leave to appeal or the subsequent appeal is dismissed on the grounds the CRTC did not make an extricable error of law or jurisdiction in the CRTC Decision.
