BT Group Plc was dumped from a lucrative €458 million ($494 million) European Union contract to handle sensitive communications between the bloc’s governments amid a dispute over the British firm’s potential access to EU secrets following Brexit.
(Bloomberg) — BT Group Plc was dumped from a lucrative €458 million ($494 million) European Union contract to handle sensitive communications between the bloc’s governments amid a dispute over the British firm’s potential access to EU secrets following Brexit.
The European Commission confirmed that the controversial 8-year contract with a Belgian-based unit of the British telecom operator was now totally canceled, even though an EU court had previously only suspended the award pending a full ruling. BT’s Spanish and German rivals Telefonica SA and Deutsche Telekom AG had complained about the way the contract had been awarded to firm from outside the 27-nation EU.
“Legal proceedings have prevented the commission from entering into the contract and the economic, technical and operational context for such services has fundamentally changed,” the Brussels-based commission said in an emailed response to questions from Bloomberg. It gave no further details about whether BT would be allowed to take part in a new tender.
A BT spokesman said the company was disappointed and is considering its position following the cancellation.
The contract award sparked outrage among some EU lawmakers, who asked the commission why it had awarded the job to a business from outside the EU when it’s targeting “strategic autonomy” and also pointed to what they called the UK’s “espionage track record” and “mass surveillance program.”
The EU said in a statement last year the the now-defunct contract’s value was was “not exceeding €458 million,” describing the BT subsidiary British Telecom Global Services Belgium BV as a Belgian company.
–With assistance from Kevin Whitelaw.
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