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T-Mobile conduct "immoral", reports Mobile News

Virgin Mobile doesn't have its own phone network; it uses the old One-2-One network, now owned by T-Mobile; and T-Mobile doesn't like the deal any more. As a result, it tried to get out of it, using "legal tactics" that a Judge has now described as "conduct deserving of moral condemnation" - according to trade newspaper, Mobile News.

"Having decided to divest itself of Virgin Mobile," writes Mobile News Editor Ian White, "you would expect T-Mobile to have negotiated a mutually-agreeable exit route - surely, this is what joint venture partners do all the time?"

But instead, he reports, managing director Harris Jones used a "skewed" interpretation of the joint venture contract to attempt to wind up the deal in a way that would have deprived Virgin of its rights under that contract.

The fiddle was to force a situation where payments of "marketing support" dropped below a critical level. The tactic was a fiddle, because it was calculated on the basis of voice-only revenues, leaving all text message revenues out.

"If these payments fell below a critical level, a no-fault termination clause would be activated," says White, "leading to the destruction of Virgin Mobile under its current ownership ... to the commercial advantage of T-Mobile."

Harris Jones has now resigned, says the Mobile News report. The judge has awarded costs to Virgin, which will run into "millions of pounds" after his unprecedented condemnation of T-Mobile's business conduct.

The newspaper has a web site but there is, apparently, no mention of this story which is on the front page of the printed edition only.