The battle between Virgin Media and British Sky Broadcasting (BSKYB) took another twist as Virgin filed a law suit with the High Court over the carriage of the basic channels of BSkyB on the cable network.
This part of the skirmish began when BSkyB doubled the rates to carry programming, which Virgin Media refused to pay. The result was that BSkyB pulled the programming from the Virgin television service on March 1.
Virgin did make an offer to deal with the issues through legally binding arbitration via an independent expert, but BSkyB refused to go along with it. That led to the filing of the lawsuit by Virgin.
The lawsuit is based upon what is called the UK Competition Act and Article 82 of the European Commission Treaty, created to keep companies in the dominant market position from abusing its power. BSkyB has about 70 percent of the UK pay-TV market. British media regulator Ofcom is already reviewing the issue.
» Gemstar-TV Guide Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit against Virgin Media from BizofShowBiz
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Tracked on: January 24, 2008 8:19 PM | Permalink to Trackback