Settlement of a dispute between the companies Mobius and La Réunion Numérique: ARCEP specifies the scope of the decision concerning a request for interim measures.

Paris, 17 June 2010

On 4 March 2010, ARCEP was called upon by the firm Mobius to settle a dispute the company had with La Réunion Numérique over several of the services being marketed by the latter on the island of Reunion. The Authority was to rule on the matter by 5 July 2010, in accordance with the law (Article L. 36-8 of the French postal and electronic communications code) which stipulates that it must issue a ruling within four months.

Alongside this main referral, Mobius also filed a request with ARCEP for interim protective measures on 21 April 2010, primarily with the aim of having La Réunion Numérique ordered to suspend activation of its "DSL Grand Public" (consumer DSL) offer, and any other procedure that makes it possible to distribute a television service.

In accordance with the aforementioned Article L. 36-8, the Authority has one month to issue a ruling on these interim protective measures. This resulted in the ARCEP Decision of 20 May 2010 which rejected Mobius's request. This decision to reject the request for interim measures does not take a position on the validity of the requests made by Mobius or the justifications of La Réunion Numérique, but confines itself only to stating that the prerequisite of a situation of urgency, which is required for such a measure to be implemented, was not satisfied.

Following the publication in the press of information that could cause confusion over the scope of the Decision of 20 May 2010 concerning interim protective measures, ARCEP felt the need to clarify the fact that a decision that rules on a request for interim protective measures is in no way prejudicial to the outcome of the underlying complaint which, in this instance, will be ruled upon by 5 July 2010, as mentioned previously.