British Telecommunicatons Plc v Office of Communications, British Sky Broadcasting Ltd, The Football Association Premier League, Virgin Media Inc.
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Aikens,Lord Justice Vos,Lady Justice Arden |
| Judgment Date | 17 February 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] EWCA Civ 133 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 17 February 2014 |
| Docket Number | Case No: C3/2013/0443 |
[2014] EWCA Civ 133
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE COMPETITION APPEAL TRIBUNAL
MR JUSTICE BARLING
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Lady Justice Arden
Lord Justice Aikens
and
Lord Justice VOS
Case No: C3/2013/0443
Jon Turner QC, Gerry Facenna & Sarah Ford (instructed by BT Legal) for British Telecom
Dinah Rose QC, Jessica Boyd, Josh Holmes (instructed by OFCOM) for OFCOM
James Flynn QC, Meredith Pickford & David Scannell (for BSkyB) (instructed by Herbert Smith Freehills LLP)
Gerard Rothschild (instructed by Ashurst LLP) for Virgin
Helen Davies QC and Richard Blakeley (instructed by DLA Piper UK LLP) for the FAPL
I. Synopsis
There are two issues in this appeal, which concerns Pay TV. The first is whether the Office of Communications ("Ofcom") has jurisdiction under section 316 of the Communications Act 2003 ("the CA 2003") to impose conditions in broadcasting licences of British Sky Broadcasting Limited ("Sky") if, as Ofcom found, "practices" of Sky relating to Pay TV made it appropriate to impose them to ensure "fair and effective competition". The second is whether the Competition Appeal Tribunal ("the CAT") erred in law in the way it disposed of some of the issues that were before it on an appeal from a Statement by Ofcom concerning "practices" of Sky which had led Ofcom to impose conditions in Sky's broadcasting licences.
Live television broadcasting of major sporting events such as Premier League football matches is big business. Sky had (at the time with which we are concerned) obtained the right to broadcast live many of these attractive events. It broadcast them to consumers on what OFCOM defined as "core premium sports channels" or "CPSCs" through Sky's own Pay TV network, which is a "digital satellite" broadcast system which now reaches nearly 10 million homes in the UK. There are other companies, such as British Telecommunications PLC ("BT") and Virgin Media, who are competitors to Sky in the "retail" market to provide Pay TV to consumers. Their Pay TV services are available through "Digital Terrestrial Television" or DTT (the successor to the old terrestrial analogue TV), "Digital Cable" TV and by "Internet Protocol Television" ("IPTV") which streams programmes to televisions using internet protocol. These competitors can be called "retailers" of Pay TV for the present purpose. Sky has always been prepared to retail (for a fee) the CPSCs on these competitors' platforms (known as 'self-retail').
Ofcom regulates Pay TV broadcasting, including aspects of competition. From 2007 Ofcom undertook three rounds of consultation on the issue of whether Sky, which Ofcom concluded had "market power" in the supply of CPSCs, was restricting the wholesale supply of CPSCs to other Pay TV providers (ie those who retailed the channels to consumers) in a manner that was prejudicial to "fair and effective competition" in the Pay TV market.
Having concluded its investigation and consultations, Ofcom, as regulator, produced a "Pay TV Statement" ("the Statement") of over 500 pages dated 31 March 2010. Ofcom's principal conclusion was that Sky had a "practice" which consisted of a "strong reluctance" to negotiate wholesale deals for CPSCs with retailers, except where there had been a prospect of regulatory intervention if it had not done so. 1 The reason for this, Ofcom concluded, was that Sky was acting over and above purely short-term commercial interests, in order to maintain two "strategic objectives". Ofcom identified these as being: (1) to protect Sky's retail business on its own satellite platform; and (2) to reduce the risk of stronger competition from rival retailers to be able to bid for "content rights", viz. the right to broadcast premium events such as the Premier League matches, which Ofcom identified as a potent
factor giving Sky its "market power" in this sector. Ofcom concluded that Sky's practice, which Ofcom characterised as a deliberate denial of wholesale access to CPSCs by retailers, was prejudicial to "fair and effective competition" in the Pay TV market.Ofcom also reached a second conclusion. This was that, to the limited extent that Sky would enter any discussion as to the wholesale pricing for CPSCs, it would be only on the basis of the price that Sky currently set to Virgin Media for the latter's right to use Sky's CPSCs and other premium channels such as movie channels. This price is known as the "rate-card" price. Ofcom found that Sky's practice was that it would countenance discounts based on the percentage of a particular retailer's customers (ie. consumers) who would subscribe to Sky's CPSCs via that particular retailer. This is known as the "rate of platform penetration". Ofcom apparently concluded that, at moderate levels of platform penetration, the price on offer from Sky would not have enabled another retailer of the CPSCs via DTT to compete with Sky's rates to consumers. Moreover, if there was a high level of platform penetration in respect of a particular retailer there would be a high risk that this would turn that retailer effectively into a "pure reseller" of Sky's content. This would be likely to reduce incentives to innovate and so be an impediment to competition.
As a consequence of its findings as to Sky's practices, Ofcom declared in the Statement that, pursuant to section 316 of the CA 2003, it would exercise its statutory right to impose a term in the broadcasting licences of Sky in respect of the CPSCs such that it must offer to wholesale its CPSCs to retailers. In the case of "standard definition" versions, Ofcom decided that Sky must offer the CPSCs at a fixed "wholesale must-offer" price, (a "WMO"), as set by Ofcom. These prices were also determined in the Statement. This was the first time that Ofcom had exercised its jurisdiction under section 316 of the CA 2003.
Sky challenged the decision of Ofcom that it had jurisdiction under section 316 of the CA 2003 to impose these licence conditions. Sky also challenged the conclusion of fact in the Statement that it had a practice of deliberately restricting the supply of CPSCs to retailers on account of the two "strategic objectives" identified by Ofcom in the Statement. The right of appeal to the CAT of a person affected by a decision of Ofcom to exercise any of its "Broadcasting Act powers", (which include the power to impose conditions on a Broadcasting Act licence), is given by section 317(6) of the CA 2003. This case was the first appeal to the CAT on Ofcom's exercise of its section 316 powers. The CAT received much factual and expert evidence in a hearing that took place over 39 days between 9 May and 15 July 2011. The CAT judgment ("the judgment"), which was handed down on 8 August 2012, runs to 330 pages. The CAT allowed Sky's appeal on the "merits" of Ofcom's principal conclusion. But it rejected Sky's case that Ofcom had no jurisdiction under section 316 to impose the WMO condition in Sky's broadcasting licence. Sky pursues this latter issue, which I will call the "jurisdiction issue," in a cross-appeal before us. In this it was supported by the Football Association Premier League ("FAPL").
There is a right of appeal from the CAT to the Court of Appeal on a point of law, by virtue of section 196 of the CA 2003. Lewison LJ gave limited permission to BT to appeal the CAT decision. He rejected the application for permission based on the CAT's reversal of Ofcom's principal conclusion on the facts. But he permitted BT to argue a point concerning the CAT's determination on Ofcom's conclusion, which was on whether retailers could compete with Sky on the basis of Sky's offer to wholesale its CPSCs at the rate-card price and, if so, on what terms. The CAT had dealt with this conclusion only shortly, at [821] of the judgment, which I will set out below. In short, the CAT said that, in the light of its conclusion on the first and (in its view) principal issue, viz. that Ofcom was wrong to conclude that Sky was refusing to negotiate wholesale agreements with retailers in order to safeguard its two strategic objectives, it was unnecessary for the CAT to deal with the second issue on any competition issues concerning rate-card prices and discounts to them. The argument of BT on appeal, supported by Ofcom, is that the CAT erred as a matter of law in failing to deal with this issue, which BT and Ofcom say is free-standing. The failure to deal with it means that the judgment is incomplete because it did not decide whether Ofcom's conclusion on the rate-card and penetration discount issues was correct, nor with the question of whether that conclusion (even if correct) would, in itself, have been sufficient to justify the imposition of the WMO in the licence condition. I will call this "the rate-card issue" for short.
As already noted, Sky obtained cross-appealed on the jurisdiction issue, which is a point on the construction of section 316 of the CA 2003, although it also involves looking at other sections of the CA 2003 and the terms of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive of the EU.
The appeal and cross-appeal are the first to arise out of Ofcom exercising powers under section 316 of the CA 2003. The appeal hearing before us took place on 5 and 6 December 2013. Counsel were admirably succinct in their oral presentations, which supplemented the full written submissions already made. We reserved judgment.
My conclusions are...
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