Delaware Supreme Court Tosses Injunction Blocking Cox/Verizon MVNO

The Delaware Supreme Court vacated a state Chancery Court injunction blocking Cox Communications from partnering with a mobile virtual network operator other than T-Mobile before it signs an MVNO agreement with T-Mobile. The Chancery Court ruled in August that Cox had violated an agreement that it would exclusively provide mobile service in partnership with T-Mobile, by planning to launch a mobile service last fall via a Verizon MVNO. In an en banc decision Thursday penned by Justice Gary Traynor, the appellate court said it agreed with Cox that the agreement with T-Mobile predecessor Sprint required the two companies to negotiate in good faith, but the language is clear they aren't required to come to terms. It said the Chancery Court's interpretation would give Cox only a T-Mobile option for an MVNO, and "reasonable actors in the position of Cox and Sprint would not have intended this result at the time of contracting." The court remanded the case to the Chancery Court for a determination whether Cox and T-Mobile have met their good-faith negotiation obligations. Justices Karen Valihura and Tamika Montgomery-Reeves, concurring in part and dissenting in part, said the agreement language was ambiguous and said a better course of action would be to reverse the trial court’s conclusion that the language was clear and remand the case so the lower court could make fact findings on what the extrinsic evidence shows about the parties' intention with that language. Cox didn't comment.