Sky has said it is “disappointed” by an Ofcom ruling that it breached rules designed to make it easy for consumers to switch broadband and landline providers, which could lead to a multi-million pound fine.
In a provisional decision on Tuesday the communications regulator said that a year-long investigation had found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Sky had breached the rules over three months between the beginning of May and end of June 2015.
It is the result of the first investigation launched by the regulator into rules designed to remove barriers to switching. The investigation drew in customer research, internal data on procedures and call recordings provided by Sky.
Ofcom has now written to Sky, giving it a month to provide written submissions in its defence and further time to make oral submissions. It will then issue a final ruling on the investigation, and what penalties if any should be imposed.
A Sky spokesperson said: “We are incredibly proud to have the highest customer satisfaction levels in the industry, as ranked in the last Ofcom customer service report.
“We have worked with Ofcom openly and constructively throughout their investigation so are very disappointed with this provisional decision. We will review the provisional assessment in detail and put forward our case before Ofcom makes its final decision.”
Sky also pointed to its customer service record, highlighting recent Ofcom data which show the company had the fewest complaints about broadband of any provider, and joint lowest with Virgin for landlines.
Ofcom has the power to impose fines for breaches of its code of up to 10% of revenue, which in Sky’s case could stretch into hundreds of millions even for the short period under investigation.
However, when Ofcom has found firms in breach previously, fines have tended to be much lower. In 2011, when Talk Talk was found to have breached rules by charging for cancelled contracts, it was offered to pay refunds and also fined £3m.
Any penalties imposed on Sky would reflect how severe Ofcom decided the breach had been.
A separate investigation into whether Sky had breached rules allowing consumers to terminate their contracts during a cooling off period after signing was dropped.
