Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – The prosecutor’s office decided that PTK Centertel committed no crime when it changed Idea brand into Orange. Now, PTC telecom is getting ready to change Era into T-Mobile brand.
The Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw has ended investigation in the case of re-branding Idea into Orange.
“The development of the company proves that the decision was right”, Jean Marc Vignolles, PTK Centertel CEO said.
Orange which implemented the new brand a year ago, is the leader as far as the number of clients is concerned. At the end of the second quarter, Orange had 11.1m clients, or 34 percent of the market.
“The investigation has been concluded as there are no signs of a crime”, Maciej Kujawski, the spokesman of the Prosecutor’s Office said.
The investigation was launched on the request of two MPs of the Law and Justice (PiS) ruling party. They based their allegations on a report made by Centrum im. Adama Smitha think-tank. The report said that the re-branding cost about USD 1 billion while the advantages of PTK Centertel were much lower. Now the MPs withdraw their allegations.
“I had doubts over Orange case. It looked like transferring money out of Poland but then it turned out that it was not easy to prove”, Antoni Mezydlao, PiS MP said.
Centertel was the first mobile operator to change the brand. PTC, the operator of Era and Heyah is planning the same.
“We are aware that it is a big challenge but we are going to fight for the position of the leader”, Iwona Kossman, the member of Centertel board said.