Wind Mobile has asked the CRTC to review TELUS ownership to ensure compliance with foreign ownership limits, according to a story on Bloomberg.
Simon Lockie, the chief regulatory officer of Globalive is quoted in the story saying:
WIND is bringing this application because TELUS’s complicated and rarely-used measures for controlling the level of foreign ownership of its publicly-traded voting shares, along with its recent proposal to restructure its share capital by converting its non-voting shares into voting shares, raises complex and novel issues that have not been dealt with by the CRTC to date.
The last phrase is key to triggering a full public proceeding for the review of TELUS’ ownership In Telecom Regulatory Policy CRTC 2009-428, Canadian ownership and control review policy, the CRTC wrote:
the Commission will hold an oral, public, multi-party proceeding (Type 4 review) where an ownership or governance structure is of a complex or novel nature, such that in the Commission’s view its determination will hold precedential value to industry players and the general public
Recall that in 2009, TELUS challenged Wind Mobile’s eligibility to operate, triggering a lengthy set of CRTC proceedings including an oral hearing, and leading to the CRTC ruling against Wind Mobile, Wind successfully turning to cabinet and a subsequent supreme court appeal (that the Court refused to hear).
The federal government’s liberalization of the foreign ownership rules, about to go into effect, do not apply to Bell, TELUS or Rogers.
So much for a quiet summer.