Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST NEWS: U.K. Court of Appeal upholds public safety network price cap order, (Jan 31, 2025)

By Jeff Williams, TR Daily

A price cap on the amount Motorola Solutions can charge for use of the network by the CMA will remain.

The United Kingdom’s Court of Appeal issued a unanimous decision dismissing Motorola Solutions, Inc.’s motion to appeal a ruling by the U.K.’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) that upheld a 2021 decision by the Competition and Market Authority (CMA) finding that Motorola Solutions, Inc., excessively priced the public safety Airwave Network. In a press release, the CMA noted that it had found that Motorola had overcharged users of the network by nearly 200 million pounds sterling ($248.9 million) a year and was “able to make supernormal profits because it has virtually unconstrained monopoly in the market to supply communications network services” for U.K. emergency services. That led to the CMA imposing a price cap on Motorola Solutions in its operation of the Airwave Network. In December 2023, the CAT rejected Motorola Solutions’ challenge of the CMA’s price cap decision.

“The CMA’s investigations and legal decisions are carefully considered and evidence-led and we welcome today’s decision by the Court of Appeal which endorses our reasoning in this case,” Greg Lusty, executive director-consumer protection and markets at the CMA, said in the release, adding, ”The Court’s judgment today means that our price cap remains in place, which limits how much Motorola can charge emergency services for using its Airwave Network.

In a statement, a Motorola Solutions spokesperson said, “Land mobile radio networks like Airwave remain the communications technology of choice for public safety agencies around the world,” adding, “While we continue to strongly disagree with the CMA’s unprecedented decision, we are focused on moving forward and continuing to deliver this world-class emergency communications service for the U.K.’s public safety users.”

In the decision in Airwave Solutions Ltd. et al. v. Competition and Markets Authority and the Secretary of State for the Home Department, No. CA-2024-000306 (U.K. Court of Appeal, Jan. 30, 2025), written by Lord Justice Nicholas Green, the Court of Appeal rejected Motorola Solutions’ contentions that the CTA erred by not finding that the CMA’s decision failed to take into account competition between the Airwave Network and the Emergency Services Network and was based on an “irrational” profitability analysis.

Among other points, Mr. Green said that the CMA properly considered the “difference between static short-term and dynamic longer-term competition and recognised the relevance of both” and that “as a matter of law and of economic logic, because multiple undertakings are in the same product or service market does not necessarily mean that they materially constrain each other. The short point is that they might but will not necessarily do so."

In addition, Mr. Green wrote, the CTA “did not leave relevant issues” out of its consideration of whether the CMA’s decision to impose the price cap was “lawful and rational" and “fully” justified.

"The facts and matters relied upon in the Decision were accepted by the CAT as being properly within the discretion of the CMA to find,” Mr. Green said. “These findings of fact are not capable of being sensibly challenged. It is not arguable that the CAT was wrong to accept these findings or as to the inference drawn from those facts and to prefer the CMA’s analysis over that of Motorola.”

Companies: Motorola Solutions, Inc.

News: Antitrust