Mossel (Jamaica) Ltd., trading as Digicel Jamaica Ltd., is also engaged in a legal battle with the OUR over the setting of rates. Digicel, a local cellular service provider, is seeking a declaration from the Supreme Court that the OUR had no authority to regulate its rates.

When the two motions came for hearing yesterday, before Justice Roy Anderson in the Supreme Court, the lawyers applied for the motions to be put off to January 7, 2003.

The OUR is seeking a declaration that the Minister's directive, issued on April 9 this year, that it is "not to intervene in the mobile (cellular) market by setting rates, tariffs or price caps on the interconnection or retail charges made by any mobile competitor, is unlawful, void and of no effect."

In the motion filed last month, the OUR is contending that the Minister misdirected himself in law, acted unlawfully or irrationally when he issued the directive, because it exceeded the limits of the discretion conferred on the Minister under Section 6 of the Telecommunications Act, 2000.

The OUR is also claiming that the Minister failed to have due regard to the relevant consideration that the express objective of the Act is to "promote and protect the public interest by promoting fair and open competition in the provision of specified services and telecommunications equipment, to provide for the protection of customers, as well as to promote the local telecommunications industry through the encouragement of economically efficient investment in, and the use of, infrastructure to provide specified services in Jamaica."

In May this year, the OUR had set a retail rate for cellular calls and Digicel is asking the Supreme Court to rule that the OUR had no authority to set prices for the rates to be charged for cellular calls.

Digicel is seeking several declarations, one of which is that the OUR breached its duty under the Telecommunications Act 2000 to have due regard to the interests of "the applicant as a carrier and service provider, in that it has failed to recognise the legitimate expectations of the applicant that it would be permitted to determine its own retail FTM and incoming international call termination rates."

It is asking that the court find that the setting of such rates is of substantial competitive significance to the provision of mobile telecommunication services in the island, and falls within the functions of the Fair Trading Commission.

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