Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
The High Court has ruled in favour of broadband ISP Virgin Media (inc. nexfibre) after one of its civil engineering partners, Svella Connect, launched a legal challenge (Part 7 Claim) against the company due to a dispute over “contractual terms“, which originally touched on issues of worker safety, rate reductions, and work volumes for full fibre operator nexfibre. But the case may be far from over.
For context. Svella Connect is a telecommunications contractor that works with Virgin Media, Openreach and CityFibre to help expand their respective national fibre optic broadband networks. A good chunk of their work with Virgin Media was acquired when they gobbled up the struggling telecoms division of NMCN Plc at the start of 2022 (here).
Regular readers might recall that ISPreview first wrote about the case back in February 2025 (here), which at the time saw a spokesperson for Svella Connect accuse Virgin Media of making “attempted unilateral rate reductions and a shift to less safe working practices—particularly the move away from MEWPs for overhead work to ladders, which was not part of the original agreement.”