Bell will work with Comp Bureau following CCTS court order

OTTAWA — A Federal Court judge has granted an application by the Competition Bureau to compel the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services (CCTS) to provide it with specific complaints it received related to BCE Inc. for its inquiry into the telecom’s alleged misleading sales practices. The previously confidential investigation by the bureau, which began in August, was revealed in a court filing earlier this month, which seeks additional information about Bell’s practices from the CCTS. In a nearly two-hour hearing on Thursday morning, judge Henry Brown determined that the information the bureau seeks from the CCTS is relevant to its investigation and that its arguments for disclosure satisfied the court. It ordered records from January 1, 2017, the date on which the bureau believes the practices began, to the date of the order be sent to the agency. Following the ruling, CCTS spokeswoman Monette Gauvreau told The Wire Report in a statement the telecom watchdog will comply with the order, putting to bed any concern from the bureau that it may contest it -- a point raised during the hearing. The watchdog, which fields consumer complaints and releases reports based on that information, has been cooperating with the agency’s investigation, according to court filings, and said yesterday it will comply with any court order. Late Thursday afternoon, Bell spokesman Marc Choma said in an email the telecom will “work with the Bureau as we would for any regulatory process.” Thursday’s hearing also revealed new information about the case, including the disclosure of two letters Bell sent to the bureau -- one as late as Wednesday evening -- objecting to the agency’s investigation and to the proposed order to have the CCTS hand over complaints information. The other letter came on June 19, 2018, just days after Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains ordered the CRTC to investigate sales practices. In the June letter, Bell argued the agency should not pursue an investigation -- the bureau had been doing a “preliminary examination” in March -- because the CRTC would have had its own inquiry, informing its argument brought Thursday that there is a jurisdictional issue. (Bell did not appear in court but asked the agency’s counsel to present the letters to the judge.) Bell also raised the issue of confidentiality and said the evidence obtained wouldn’t even be admissible in a court or tribunal. Point by point, however, the judge rejected each of Bell’s arguments, unconvinced about the relevancy of some, and rejecting others, including any jurisdictional conflict. Judge Brown said the CRTC and the bureau function as two completely separate entities, governed by separate statutes, and the inquiries themselves are separate. When asked why the bureau didn’t go to Bell for the records it seeks, the agency’s counsel, Paul Klippenstein, said the bureau thought it would get a more fulsome response from the CCTS. Bains’ order followed a series of reports by CBC/Radio-Canada in late 2017 that found Bell sales representatives had been misleading Canadians on its services. The minister requested the CRTC produce a report by February this year, which criticized the industry for having an “unacceptable degree” of bad practices following a hearing on the matter. The regulator is currently consulting on an internet service provider code of conduct. The CRTC initially rejected the idea of an inquiry in February at the urging of public interest groups because the regulator said there were other avenues to take those complaints, including with the Competition Bureau, but eventually relented after the order. In February, with the bureau’s investigation still under wraps, NDP MP Brian Masse urged the agency and the Privacy Commissioner to investigate the matter. According to the court records filed earlier this month, the bureau said it has “reason to believe” Bell had misled the public on its services. It said its inquiry so far has revealed that there are a “number of ways” consumers could be misled by Bell, including being told quoted prices would not rise during a fixed term, that they would be able to renew services at promo prices even after the promo ends, and that some of them would have fibre services when they only had copper wires running to their homes. In fact, it revealed that its own officers have been “the recipients of false or misleading representations during on-line chat sessions with Bell residential sales specialists, at the door by third-party marketing agents and in-person at Bell corporate retail stores.” It then turned its attention to the CCTS, which recently released a report highlighting that Bell made up 33 per cent of accepted complaints in its 2017-18 annual report. The bureau said it has received 65 complaints related to the practices since that date. The watchdog is seeking a subset of complaint information, including the complainant’s name, contact information, the nature of incidents, the code breaches, the customer’s initial complaint details and the date the complaint was submitted. All relate to Bell’s residential services marketed in-person at corporate or third-party retail stores, online and door-to-door and which are tagged by the CCTS as “out of scope” for false or misleading advertising. It also wants to know the nature and frequency of these representations to the public. It is also asking about how the CCTS identifies and reports on issues and complaints related to the practices, how it conveys information to the providers related those issues, as well as to show which complaints were provided to Bell, which “generic” Bell email address is used by the CCTS to notify the company of the complaints and the “executive points of contact” the CCTS provides copies and follow-ups of complaints, including who specifically at Bell is currently receiving, reviewing and following-up on complaints. The agency has other business with the telecoms, as well. While studying whether broadband competition is sufficient, it is also seeking to compel wireless service providers to hand them what the telecoms consider to be sensitive information related to the CRTC’s review of the mobile wireless framework. — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Bell will work with Comp Bureau following CCTS court order

News | 04/11/2019 12:50 pm EDT

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