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Legal eagles fly in to Irish mobile licence scandal

Lawsuit city...

By Suzanna Kerridge

Published: 5 August 2002 11:05 BST

The losing bidders in the controversial Irish mobile phone licence scandal have started separate legal proceedings against the way in which the licences were distributed.

Michael Lowry, former Minister for Public Enterprise, and the man responsible for handing out the licences, is accused of having handled the allocation in an improper manner.

Allegations abound over the nature of his business relationship with Esat Digiphone boss, and ultimate licence winner, Denis O'Brien.

The Irish government sold the licence for E15m. Four years later O'Brien sold his company to BT for over E2bn and pocketed E300m from the sale.

The Cellstar consortium and the Persona Consortium are questioning the decisions to extend the deadline for licence bids thus allowing Esat time to get Telenor on board and the capping of the fee at E15m rather than allowing the licence to go to the highest bidder.

The news came as the Moriarty Tribunal announced it was launching a full public investigation into the awarding of the licence.

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