Sky Business / wont deal with myself because of legal action ??

whiteswan

Hi

Bit of a long story but I'll try my best to shorten it as much as possible.

I have had a Sky Business TV agreement in the Pub I run for the past 12 years.

Last year Sky carried out some cabling in the pub which was so bad it left me without a working system for most of the football season.

I have initiated court action in the small claims court to try and recover the costs involved for myself to correct the cabling and also for the tv subscription which I continued to pay throughout the season in the hope that they would correct their mistakes.

This is ongoing and they have until next week to respond to my claim. There has been no reply as of yet.

They did respond to my pre court action letter with a very poor offer that I have rejected (and they missed their own deadline for replying)

In the meantime the new season starts this weekend.

I have contacted Sky Business to start up a new contract with them for the forthcoming season.

They have stated that unless I accept their (very poor in my opinion) offer to compensate myself that they will not be giving me a new contract - thus preventing me from showing any football on my premises (apart from the BT Sport matches - which we also have a commercial agreement for).

Is there anything I can do ? (apart from accept their bad offer ?

It was bad enough last season that the football kept going off due to their bad cabling - but I feel they are blackmailing me as this could be the difference between remaining open for business and closing the pub down - we need the football revenue.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Dave

JReacher1

Open the new sky account in a different name?

whiteswan

JReacher1 wrote: »

Open the new sky account in a different name?

Hi

The account is in the pub name - not something I can easily change ;-)

Dave

JJ_Egan

How many times did Sky attempt a repair and how many times did you contact them .

bris

Taking them to court and relying on their service wasn't the smartest move.


There is nothing you can do, they can decide who to sell to like everyone else.


If your business relies heavily on the sports you show like a lot of them do then you should try and resolve it by accepting their offer.


You need to look at the figures, will you make more money by having a full package or by what the courts might award you? Lets not ignore the fact that as a business you have no consumer rights and are bound by the terms of your contract. With this in mind do you even have a case.

whiteswan

Hi

I contacted them every time it went faulty - around 30-40 times.

They came out to the system around 8 times - but failed to fix the problem.

I "think" I have a case - but i'm sure everybody who starts smal claims action does ;-)

The claim is for around £5000 - so not an insubstantial amout of money.

Because the business has a long history with them I assumed that this would be treated as a new contract and nothing to do with the last one - perhaps stupidly on my part.

Dave

unholyangel

OP you'll likely need proper legal advice. Businesses don't get the same protection as consumers although some legislation does apply equally to b2b as it does consumer contracts (such as the unfair contract terms act).

First things first, check your contract T&C's with sky and see what they say about damages - whether they have a liquidated damages clause or whether they exclude any type of loss from claims for damages.

But just to note, forcing a company to make good on a breach or complete the performance of a contract they agreed to is one thing, its another thing entirely to actually try and force a company to enter into a contract in the first place and afaik, can't be done.

Alice_Walker

Have you provided a breakdown of your claim - subscription, repair work etc? This will help your case. How much did Sky offer?

As bris notes, Sky are free to contract with whomever they wish. Whilst sympathetic to your position it is understandable why they would not want to continue providing services whilst in dispute with you.

steampowered

If this farce results in you losing service and therefore losing customer revenue, I suppose you could potentially add this to the amount you are claiming from Sky through the court case.

I suppose you could make this point to the legal representative dealing with the case on behalf of Sky, inviting them to continue providing services on the basis that you will not pursue them for lost revenue arising after the date on which good service resumes.

Is there an alternative provider you could move to apart from Sky? If not, and Sky refuse to contract with you, you could potentially claim against Sky under competition law for abuse of a dominant position in the market. Another point you could make in correspondence with their lawyers.

It may be worth applying pressure using the above to try and get Sky to agree a more reasonable settlement.

[Deleted User]

steampowered wrote: »

Is there an alternative provider you could move to apart from Sky? If not, and Sky refuse to contract with you, you could potentially claim against Sky under competition law for abuse of a dominant position in the market.

Sky aren't forced to provide a service to a given customer by "Competition Law".

Since the OP already mentions using alternative provider BT, it's a moot point anyhow.

steampowered

Sky aren't forced to provide a service to a given customer by "Competition Law".

Since the OP already mentions using alternative provider BT, it's a moot point anyhow.

Hello

Where companies operate a dominant position in the marketplace, refusal to supply a good or service can be seen as an abuse of that position. Damages can be claimed for abuse of a dominant position.

As a result companies with a dominant position can effectively be forced not to refuse to contract with people on their standard terms where there is no reasonable alternative. For example Microsoft can't refuse to sell you windows (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp_v_Commission).

You can verify this by typing "refusal to supply abuse of dominant position" into google, or reviewing a link such as this: http://www.reckon.co.uk/solutions/what-kind-of-issues-can-we-address/competition-law-enforcement/exclusionary-abuse/refusal-to-supply/. There have been lots of cases in which companies holding a dominant business (such as monopolies) have been successfully sued for refusing to supply or do business.

I am not suggesting the Op should start issuing claims of this nature, but I think the threat of claiming additional damages if Sky act in this manner is helpful if Sky are trying to blackmail the Op into settling his claim on poor terms.