Court prevents signing of fixed-line telephone contracts

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The signing of concession contracts between Anatel — National Telecommunications Agency and public fixed-line telephone service concessionaires is suspended for 30 days. The determination was made by judge Antonio Corrêa, from the 9th Federal Court of Justice in the Federal District, confirmed by the Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region. The judge accepted the arguments of lawyer Flávia Lefèvre Guimarães — who represents engineers Ruy Bottesi and Marcelo Peral Rengel in the Popular Action — that Anatel failed to edit important rules in the concession contract such as the conversion of pulse to minute, which resulted in a real increase in the consumer's monthly bill.

According to the judge, important regulations for competition were also not made, such as number portability, that is, the possibility for consumers to change operator without having to change their telephone number. The market competition plan was also awaiting regulation, in addition to modifying contract clauses such as the readjustment of the basic subscription, which allows a real increase every year Estonia Email List of up to 5% in addition to monetary correction. According to Flávia Lefèvre Guimarães, the General Telecommunications Law provides for the end of the privatization process in December 2005 and extends the concessions for a period of 20 years. However, in July 2003, Anatel issued a resolution with the draft contract and then there was no further regulation, maintains the lawyer. The first instance had ordered suspension of the signing of the contract for 90 days.



Brasil Telecom appealed to the TRF of the 1st Region and managed to modify the injunction only with regard to the suspension period for signing the contract, which was reduced to 30 days. With the decision, Anatel will have 30 days to regulate the Court's requests. The decision prevents Anatel from granting telephone companies a deadline for technical adaptation — the deadline given by the agency was August 2006. The fine, in case of non-compliance, is R$10,000 per day. The injunction is effective in all states in which Brasil Telecom operates.Lawyer specializing in PPPs Vera Monteiro , who was a consultant for Metrô in preparing the notice, explains that the bidding will have another innovation, in addition to being the first for PPPs. The new thing is that the state will first analyze the financial proposals and then study the winner's capacity to carry out the project.