MONTREAL – When Bell applied for an injunction back on April 11th against Quebecor’s decision to remove TVA Sports from Bell TV customers, it also filed an application to be reviewed in Québec’s Superior Court on the merits later.
On Friday, April 26th Bell modified that application. The details of the original became known as they had been overlooked earlier this month.
Bell had complained Quebecor’s public statements harmed its reputation and filed various examples of company CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau’s publicity campaign against the company and CRTC regulations – and cited relevant legislation which were allegedly breached, reads the court document:
- Trademarks Act: No person shall (…) make a false or misleading statement tending to discredit the business, goods or services of a competitor;
- Competition Act: No person shall, for the purpose of promoting, directly or indirectly, the supply or use of a product or for the purpose of promoting, directly or indirectly, any business interest, by any means whatever, knowingly or recklessly make a representation to the public that is false or misleading in a material respect
- Québec’s Consumer Protection Act: No merchant, manufacturer or advertiser may, by any means whatever, make false or misleading representations to a consumer.
- Québec’s Civil Code: Every person has a duty to abide by the rules of conduct incumbent on him, according to the circumstances, usage or law, so as not to cause injury to another.
The latest is in the context of Bell alleging that Quebecor revealed information, such as wholesale TV channel carriage rates, which Bell considers commercially sensitive, and the fact that it was made public goes against the terms of the agreement that binds the two companies.
Bell intends to prove the campaign resulted in loss of subscribers, that it incurred costs due to increased bargains offered to subscribers in order to retain them after Quebecor’s campaign began, added expenses due to added requests in calls to its service representatives and losses of revenues because it chose to offer Sportsnet free to mitigate the loss of TVA Sports feed.
Due to the alleged manifest intent of Québecor to hurt Bell’s reputation, punitive and exemplary damages are sought by Bell to the sum of $150 million.
Québecor’s response came rapidly late Friday. “Quebecor is disappointed by Bell Canada’s decision to engage in multiple delaying and diversionary tactics instead of responding to the CRTC’s and Quebecor’s call to negotiate in the matter of the fair value of TVA’s specialty channels,” reads a statement.
“Bell’s legal action appears designed to silence Quebecor. Bell’s allegations are shameful and abusive, both with respect to the exorbitant amounts claimed and the attempt to deprive Quebecor of its fundamental constitutional right to free speech.”
We would note then Rob Malcolmson, Bell’s senior vice-president of regulatory affairs and government relations already said at the emergency CRTC hearing on April 17th, “under current rules, the proper response to a commercial dispute is to seek final resolution from the Commission through the final offer arbitration process, as Bell has done in this case. “
Having gone to FOA, there seems little hope of a negotiated resolution to all this.
