Towers, break between Fastweb+Vodafone and Inwit: legal clash opens

The tower war now leaves the conference calls and enters the paperwork. Fastweb + Vodafone has served notice of termination of the Master Service Agreement (Msa) with Inwit, opening a rift that goes well beyond the perimeter of a commercial dispute.

The company controlled by Swisscom puts it in black and white that Inwit's 'service costs are not in line with market benchmarks' and adds that the tower company has shown an 'unwillingness to initiate a formal discussion aimed at aligning them'. This is the heart of the rupture: for Fastweb + Vodafone, excessively high fees mean fewer resources for network, coverage and 5G; for Inwit, on the other hand, MSAs remain long-term contracts, consistent with an industrial model based on predictable revenues and upfront investments.

The cancellation, formally, does not take effect tomorrow morning. But the interpretation problem is central. For Inwit the agreements extend until 2038 (for the 8+8 but extended based on the signing of the change of control in 2022), while for Tim and Swisscom (Fastweb + Vodafone's parent company) the revision windows are 2030 and 2028 respectively. In between, in addition to litigation, years of transition, migration negotiations and an industrial match are promised, intertwined with the new alliance between Tim and Fastweb + Vodafone to build up to 6,000 towers. It is not a detail: it is the telcos' return to the temptation of taking back pieces of infrastructure after years of sales and sale & lease backs. But it is above all an issue of negotiating leverage.

The point is that this is no longer just a discussion about the price of hospitality. It is a challenge to Inwit's bargaining power. The company has already made it clear that it considers the agreements valid until 2038 and that it will take 'any action necessary' to enforce its reading. In a clarification last week, as soon as the bailamme broke out following the announcement of Tim and Fastweb+Vodafone's plan to work on the construction of 6,000 new towers, Inwit had already defended the long-term nature of the Msa; after the announcement of the jv between Tim and Fastweb+Vodafone it then spoke of a project "in clear contrast with the Msa" and of the protection of its interests "in every competent forum". The legal battle, in short, has already been promised.

Fastweb + Vodafone, for its part, has announced that it has initiated a legal action "at the competent venues" to have the right of exit ascertained. And the front is expected to widen further: by the end of the month, Tim is also expected to make a move, in a clash involving contracts on which a decisive share of Inwit's revenues depends. It is no coincidence that the market is looking at the dispute with apprehension: the tug-of-war with the two main customers is complicating the group's visibility, while in the background there is even the Ardian-Brookfield dossier with their interest in Inwit, which at this point, according to some observers, could be put on hold pending clarification on this front.