Rogers outage relevant to approval of $26B Shaw deal, Competition Tribunal rules

Canada's Competition Tribunal has ruled that the Rogers Communications Incorporated (Inc.) July 8 service outage is relevant to the upcoming hearings on the telecom giant's $26-billion takeover of Shaw Communications Inc.

The ruling was made on Friday, Aug. 26 after hearing submissions from Rogers and the Commissioner of Competition on the matter.

The outage affected millions of Canadians, and to make sure it doesn't happen again, Rogers is committing $10 billion over three years on network upgrades and will spend $150 million on customer credits.

The ruling comes after Rogers released a commercial last week outlining what it is doing to earn back the trust of Canadians.

In a separate court document filed on Aug. 15 and made available to the public Monday, the Competition Bureau says the proposed sale of Shaw-owned wireless carrier Freedom Mobile to Quebecor Inc.'s Videotron Limited (Ltd.) is not an “effective remedy” as it “fails to eliminate the substantial lessening and prevention of competition” the transaction could cause.

Rogers intends to sell Freedom to Quebecor for $2.85 billion, in the hopes that the move will appease the concerns of federal regulators regarding its proposed takeover of Shaw.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 29, 2022.

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