Although TELUS says it is “fully compliant with foreign ownership restrictions”, the Globalive / Wind Mobile application to review that compliance raises some very interesting issues.
First of all, now that the application has been filed with the Commission, it is not possible for TELUS to have any ex-parte discussions with Commissioners to discuss the ownership or proposed restructuring. The CRTC was quite strict about avoiding meetings with Globalive during its 2009 ownership review; there is no reason to believe that the Commission would be more lenient with the TELUS review.
As such, TELUS will need to prove its compliance in what could be a lengthy public proceeding, especially if Globalive succeeds in having the CRTC conduct a Type 3 or 4 review.
According to the news report, Globalive is claiming that 48% of TELUS’ voting shares are held with non-Canadian addresses. If that is accurate, that number is about 50% too high; only one third of voting shares can be held by non-Canadians according to the bright line test set out in the definition of a “qualified corporation” in the Ownership Regulations.
It becomes interesting to contemplate how such a situation could be remedied, if the CRTC determines that there is, in fact, a problem. How would you fix this?
Your comments, as always, are welcome.
Does anyone have a link to the CRTC file on the matter ? Until we see the actual application from Globalive being posted on the CRTC web site, we doN’t even know if the CRTC has accepted the application.
The CRTC file for this proceeding can be found here.