Relations between Orange and Scopelec, responsible for the fiber connections of the incumbent operator, take a new turn, judicial this time. About ten days after the cooperative was placed in safeguard proceedings following the loss of 65% of its contracts with Orange, its management is suing the telecom giant for “sudden termination of the commercial relationship”. This legal offensive, reported by the JDD this Sunday, constitutes a new stage in the showdown between the largest French cooperative and Orange, one of its main economic partners.
Last November, it had lost 65% of its subcontracting contracts with Orange following a devastating new call for tenders launched by the incumbent operator to put an end to the recurring criticisms aimed at the quality of its final fiber optic connections. The damage is significant for Scopelec and its 3,600 employees. Its management figures at 1,000 the number of jobs threatened following Orange’s decision, effective on March 31, which should cause it to lose 40% of its turnover, estimated at 475 million euros in 2021.
For Scopelec, the operator is largely at fault. The latter is accused of not having respected the notice and of not having accompanied him in this change, which Orange disputes. “The purpose of this summons is to enforce our rights to useful notice and our rights to support, including financial, in the face of the damage suffered”, said the chairman of the executive board of the Scopelec group, Thomas Foppiani, when filing a complaint. . For its part, the management of Orange contests for its part “the merits of this assignment”.
“The winners of the contract in force until March 31, 2022 were notified in 2018 of the end of this contract and the launch of a new call for tenders. This was formally notified to them in April 2020, i.e. 23 months before the end, with a notice period greater than usual, ”she argues in a press release.
The case continues in court
At the end of last year, Orange had already justified the partial non-renewal of its partnership with Scopelec by a degradation of the services provided by the cooperative. “After several warnings in recent years, the quality of the services offered by certain current service providers, including Scopelec, which has received several dozen formal notices due to breaches in certain territories, has led Orange to review the allocation of the areas entrusted to everyone, “said the direction of the operator.
The decision did not fail to alarm the General Confederation of Cooperative and Participatory Societies (CG SCOP), for which the reduction of the airfoil in the partnership linking the company and the operator would have an impact of 150 million euros on Scopelec’s annual turnover, which amounted to 463.9 million euros in 2020. Nearly 1,910 jobs would be threatened, including 580 in New Aquitaine, 500 in Occitanie or 300 in Burgundy France- County, then estimated the union.
The management of Orange has since defended itself by asserting that “the questioning of a service provider in a territory has no impact on local employment”, due to “the shortage of labor in the sector, which relies on local and non-relocatable jobs”. And to argue that a “change of service provider therefore in no way affects the number of jobs in the territory concerned”. If the case will continue in court, the operator’s management recalls that Scopelec is still one of Orange’s main partners for fiber optic installation work and copper network maintenance.