Even though German phone company Deutsche Telekom has been legally compelled to offer unlocked iPhones for weeks following a lawsuit from competitor Vodafone, as it turns out, the matter wasn’t entirely settled. On Tuesday, a Germany court overturned Vodafone’s hard-won injunction, allowing T-Mobile (an arm of Deutsche Telekom) to stop selling unlocked iPhones in the future.
At issue is whether or not T-Mobile violates German anti-competition laws by selling iPhones that work exclusively on its own network. Unlike other common arrangements in which networks subsidize the purchase of a phone in exchange for a contract, T-Mobile does not help its customers foot the bill, which may have helped its case in court.
“From the beginning we were very convinced that this was an offer that’s absolutely fine from the legal side, and a really good offer for the customer,” T-Mobile spokesman Klaus Czerwinski told Bloomberg in a telephone interview.
While they were available, T-Mobile offered unlocked iPhones for an astounding €999, over twice the price of the €399 iPhone that came with a T-Mobile contract.
