Israel’s High Court of Justice rejected an appeal by Bezeq Telecomunications Company Ltd against the government decision to open the country’s telecommunications market to competition: the court let stand the new licence issued by the Israeli communications ministry which ends Bezeq’s monopoly in nearly all telecommunications sectors; the decision paved the way for the communications ministry to issue a proposed tender enabling a second company to compete with Bezeq for international services; in May the ministry picked Celcom to operate the country’s second cellular phone network to compete with Bezeq; Celcom is a partnership between Bell South Brazil’s Safra brothers, Israel’s Discount Investment Corp and Israel Aircraft Industries; the appeal by Bezeq was unusual since the company is still 76% state-owned; in the past Bezeq workers have protested at the licence issue and nearly shut the country’s entire telephone network last March.
