After many legal episodes, Orange was ordered by the Council of State to pay a fine of more than 300,000 euros, the fault of fraud concerning the display of the rental prices of its Liveboxes.
The case now dates back more than 5 years and Orange was not the only operator concerned: in 2017, the repression of Fraud (the DGCCRF) opened an investigation into the pricing practices of internet box operators in France.
The investigation revealed that the four incumbent operators, Orange, Free, Bouygues Telecom and SFR, did not explicitly mention the cost of renting the internet box in their commercial offers, which could mislead consumers about the price. real they were going to pay.
New rules imposed on operators
As a result, operators had to comply with these new price transparency rules with, in particular, the obligation to clearly display the rental price of a box in any offer and include it in the final price displayed. , or generally between 3 and 5 euros extra per month, in addition to the price of the subscription.
The operators have also been forced to reimburse the internet box rental costs invoiced since August 23, 2015, for customers who had not been informed of these costs when signing their contract.
Orange has no choice but to checkout
Except that this case had not yet known a real conclusion. The reason being that Orange, like Bouygues Télécom, had simply not fulfilled these conditions within the imposed time (before February 1, 2018) by displaying separately and making the rental price of a Livebox as invisible as possible. on its offers page.
If Bouygues Télécom had quickly gone to the cash register, Orange had then embarked on a legal battle spread over 5 years, which came to an end on April 7, 2023. After several challenges by the operator to this court decision with several authorities, it was the Council of State which rendered its verdict by condemning Orange to pay its initial fine of 315,000 euros.
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