Blue-I paid a high price for licences to produce fascias featuring cartoon characters from Warner Brothers and the Coca-Cola logo.

Blue-I was formed by Jay and Vimal Pau and used to be known as Fone Range Partnerships (not to be confused with the Fonerange brand now owned by Elite Mobile).

Blue-I commercial director Oliver Brooks declined to comment on the reasons for Blue-Is failure.

Blue-Is collapse will affect people who are owed money by the Pau brothers old company Paragon the former holding company of Blue-I which is also now defunct. (Cont P2) They are unlikely to receive any dividend.

When Paragon went bust in April 2001 its creditors approved an offer made by liquidator Levy Gee which reckoned that they might receive 9p in the pound. This offer was conditional on Blue-I paying Levy Gee 400000 for stock and equipment and the release of Blue-I shares.

Paragons liquidator Simon Glyn confirmed that Blue-Is failure meant Paragon creditors would be left out of pocket. Blue-I still owed Levy Gee 290000 which the liquidator will now not receive.

Glyn told Mobile News: The offer of 9p in the pound was just an estimate. We have not yet agreed all the creditors claims.

An ex-Blue-I employee said the commitment to repay 400000 to Paragon caused Blue-I to suffer cashflow problems.

He confided: In hindsight the goodwill payment was paid at an over-inflated price. It was a burden that Blue-I struggled with as market conditions worsened and sales dropped.

There were other factors too. The value of some (fascia) licences dropped because of cross-border trading counterfeiting and grey imports he said. The two licences most affected were Warner Brothers and Coca-Cola which Blue-I paid highly for. Strong police action was needed to stop this but we did not see it. Warner Brothers tried to deal with these problems but it is a long and difficult process.

Industry sources say he has been in talks with Virgin Retail to acquire some V.Shops.

He is believed to have approached Virgin Retail some weeks ago with a view to purchasing some of their companys stores. The move apparently coincided with Virgins decision to review its V.Shops which resulted in the sale of 40 stores to Sanity Records two weeks ago.

Sanity purchased 100 Our Price stores just under a year ago.

Insiders claim Emanuel is still in talks with Virgin to acquire some of the remaining 60 V.Shops in order to expand his new mobile phone retail chain Tomo which launched earlier this year with a solitary store in Nottingham.

Virgin Retail is still considering a number of options for the (Cont P2) remaining V. Shops including turning some into mini-Virgin Megastores branded Virgin Megastore Express.

In the meantime Virgin Mobile says the sale of V.Shops does not reduce Virgin Mobiles presence on the high street. Virgin Mobile corporate affairs director Steven Day told Mobile News:

Virgin Mobile is sold exclusively as the only mobile phone products in V.Shops. We will continue to supply products to Sanity Records and be the sole mobile phone products in the stores under new ownership.

The clawback came after Convergent experienced a high volume of disconnections from an unnamed dealer. The dealer has since stopped trading. (Cont P2)

Convergent Telecoms parent company Convergent Communications issued a trading statement stating that the 1 million loss would mean interim results would be below market expectations. Industry insiders say Walsh had to go because he had overall responsibility for connections made through the company.

Convergent chief executive Tony Farmer said the loss would not affect the companys ability to continue trading.

We have suffered a bad debt from a distribution relationship. The loss is irrecoverable and we have written it off on our interim results. The whole of the business remains unaffected. In fact our service provision business is growing well. There will be no further impact on the business following this loss.

However Rocom has vowed to challenge Oranges right to issue clawback claims. If Rocom wins its appeal there could be wide-reaching implications for Oranges other distributors and direct dealers.

Rocom had been defending a 1 million clawback claim by Orange claiming Orange employees had authorised irregular connections made through two of its former dealers. Rocom chairman Bob Old lodged a counter-claim alleging that Orange employees were to blame for the situation. But that claim was dismissed by the judge at the hearing on October 22.

Orange issued a statement saying:

The judge rejected most of Rocoms defences and counter-claims. The only outstanding issue in the litigation is the exact amount which is due from Rocom to Orange in respect of clawback commission. This amount will be determined at a future hearing

But Rocoms chairman Bob Old insisted that Orange had won nothing and that he would battle on to challenge Oranges right to (Cont P2) clawback commission. Old told Mobile News.

Orange has made an announcement that it has won its long-running dispute with Rocom by obtaining judgment against Rocom.

Oranges premature and simple statement is misleading. It does not make it clear that when the court order is executed a judgment against Rocom will be offset by credit due to Rocom of a greater amount such that Rocom would be net in credit.

Rocom has been given leave to defend Oranges claim to clawback commissions and to call into question historical clawback of commissions by Orange. Rocom is now preparing a substantial defence and counter-claim.

The net result of which may be that Orange owes Rocom a sum of money because either Orange is wrongly claiming commission clawbacks or has already wrongly clawed back commissions.

The row is over a website from a company called phones4you.co.uk set up by a Carphone Warehouse affiliate which directs surfers to The Carphone Warehouses home page.

I am amazed The Carphone Warehouse is being so blase about the whole affair said Phones4U managing director Anthony Catterson. They might see it as just one of those things and something that happens all the time but we see it as a very serious matter.

We believe Phones4U customers are being deliberately misled because The Carphone Warehouse is passing itself off as Phones4U.

The practice is the same as if The Carphone Warehouse built a store with a Phones4you sign outside and then a Carphone Warehouse interior.

Catterson wants the website closed down a formal apology from The Carphone Warehouse and financial compensation from the retailer for any sales that it might have made from the website.

They say it isnt illegal but I have a lawyer who thinks differently. It is the clear misleading of customers by using a derivative of our name continued Catterson.

It is an incongruous standpoint for a company that normally takes the moral high ground and presents itself to customers in this light.

That is why I have no problem going public with this . (Cont P2)

The dispute arose when Phones4U found that internet users who misspelt its web address and typed phones4you.co.uk were directed to The Carphone Warehouse homepage.

Catterson said the company was consulting its lawyers and suggested that The Carphone Warehouse was breaching its trademark.

But The Carphone Warehouse has denied any wrongdoing and suggest it is a perfectly acceptable and common practice.

It really isnt a big deal said a Carphone Warehouse spokeswoman.

In the first place it isnt something we have done we only found out about it last week.

The name was secured by a third-party affiliate that works for us. Secondly we have no problem with this sort of thing. It isnt illegal and we suffer from the same problem ourselves.

According to The Carphone Warehouse the controversial website was secured by one of the companys online affiliates whose actions are monitored by a company called Trade Doubler.

If The Carphone Warehouse secures a sale over the internet as a result of the redirection the affiliates are paid commission.

The Carphone Warehouse spokeswoman also claimed (at the time of going to press) that if users type in fonesforyou.co.uk they would be redirected to a dial-a-phone website while if users searched for carphonewarehouse.co.uk they are also directed to another dial-a-phone website.

We really cannot see what the problem is and we will be taking no action to stop Trade Doubler or any other affiliate she told Mobile News.

SonyEricsson UK marketing chief Peter Marsden explained both Sony and Ericsson used to outsource dealer support to field marketing agencies.

Sony used Mosaic Technology for training merchandising and in-store promotional support. Ericsson had a similar relationship with The Blue Water Agency.

After a review we discovered the service we were providing to the independent channel was not as good as we wanted it to be. Neither Mosaic or Blue Water will be working for us. Neither will the staff they employ. Thats probably where the rumour started that SonyEricsson is pulling away from the independent channel.

Blue Water people have been regarded by dealers as Ericsson employees.

There was no need for them to know that their Ericsson rep worked for a third-party field marketing agency. That was the way Ericsson wanted it to be done.

A further three people were made redundant following the appointment of joint administrators Simon Bower and Mike Oldham of London insolvency specialists RSM Robson Rhodes which handled the administration of Ora and disposal of three Wap Stores that in an ironic twist were sold to Cityphone for 700000.

The remaining 12 companies within the Cityphone group including Talk 4 All and Phone Direct continue to trade.

An RSM Robson Rhodes spokesperson confirmed:

We can confirm that Pointgold Ltd a mobile phone distributor went into administrative receivership on Monday September 23.

The company has ceased trading. Only two of the 23 staff remain.

The receivers say it is too early to tell whether any of the remaining companies in the group will be affected by the collapse of Pointgold which was the primary distribution company within the Cityphone group.

It is understood Pointgold supplied Cityphones Talk 4 All and WAP Stores.

Cityphone MD Barry Donaghey was unavailable for comment. However Donagheys partner and Pointgold director Paul Williams told Mobile News that the collapse of Pointgold could affect (Cont P2) other companies within the Cityphone group.

The receivers are looking at the commissions owed to other companies in the group and the effect it has down the chain.

Pointgold supplied all of the retail outlets within the group. We are hoping to save the business.

Robson Rhodes says it is too early to confirm the extent of Pointgolds debts and its creditors. However it is understood that T-Mobile is Cityphones largest creditor. Cityphone also purchased handsets and accessories from a number of other UK distributors. Rumours that Pointgolds parent company Cityphone were in financial trouble have been circulating the industry for weeks.

Donaghey admitted a fortnight ago (Mobile News September 16) that Cityphone was experiencing some financial problems and said the group was undergoing a restructuring to cut its overheads. Donaghey blamed the problems on the groups store acquisitions.

The shops were the biggest problem Donaghey told Mobile News after shutting 12 of the groups Talk 4 All shops.

Cityphone commenced its drive to build a nationwide retail chain in March 2000 when it purchased 18 TCL stores from the Kent dealer distributor liquidators KPMG.

The shops were rebranded Talk 4 All (Mobile News March 6 2000). A year later Cityphone purchased 14 Cellularfone (CFL) outlets in Northern Ireland for 500000 (Mobile News March 19 2001).

Within a year Cityphone had boosted its retail presence to 75 stores with the acquisition of the 30 WAP Stores from RSM Robson Rhodes (Mobile News January 21).

BTCellnet general manager Ian Driver told Mobile News the network was aware of the urgency of the matter and expected an announcement this week.

I guess the lawyers will be busy between now and then Driver said last Wednesday.

On Monday July 30 an administration order made under section 8 of the Insolvency Act meant PricewaterhouseCoopers was appointed joint administrators of RSL COM.

Around 115 redundancies swiftly followed.

There is insufficient resources to maintain the growth requirements of the Group. As a result in the absence of financial support from the RSL COM Group or additional funding from an investor the company was forced to seek protection from its creditors through the administration process said Pricewaterhouse-Coopers.

Joint administrator Peter Spratt confirmed:

We are seeking buyers for all parts of the business as a going concern and are optimistic that our strategy will produce the best opportunity of preserving value in the company. (full story page 14).

Cityphone boss Barry Donaghey told Mobile News he had been in talks with the administrators for some time about taking the 120 stores.

I understand that another company is bidding. I would like to know who it is. I might be able to do a deal with them said Donaghey.

The other bidder is believed to be a consortium of dealers based in the North of the country. Administrators HLB Kidsons confirmed there were two bidders for Phone People but declined to name them.

Seventy Phone People stores closed earlier this year with redundancies of 70 staff.

It seems potential buyers have not been impressed with what they were being offered.

WAP store boss Graham Cornhill said:

Ive been offered the stores. But I do not think it is worthwhile spending thousands of pounds on stores when we can open up a shop next door for next to nothing. Not many of the stores have a good trading history.

Fone Logistics managing director Ian Gillespie said he put in a bid but has now pulled out of the running.

We put in a serious bid about two months ago but heard nothing back from the administrators. In the meantime we have re-assessed the situation and decided not to pursue our interest any further.

Donaghey is unsure as to what the outcome of his talks will be.

I dont know if we will definitely buy or not. I just hope that after all these negotiations we are not going to find out that the shops are in a worse condition than weve been told. But negotiations are taking an awfully long time.

Elite boss Ajay Gokani said.

The van has been recovered but the cargo of 50 Nokia handsets is missing. They were a return load of 30 Nokia 8850s and 20 Nokia 8210s. They were brand new (Cont P2) phones being returned because some of the boxes were damaged. We have a list of the IMEI numbers.

It happened mid-morning. The driver had stopped off to have a cup of tea after making a delivery in Manchester. We think the men are from the Manchester area. I dont believe they followed the van all the way from London said Gokani.

Manchester Police confirmed the attack took place at 10:10 on Tuesday June 26.

Two men both five foot eight tall and wearing blue balaclavas approached the Mercedes Sprinter van from the rear and opened the doors. The driver was dragged out from behind the wheeland dumped on the road.

He suffered minor grazing to his knees and forearm. No goods have been recovered said the police statement.