Motorola sues UK gov’t for £14m over unpaid emergency services bill

London: Motorola Solutions is suing the UK government as it seeks £14.5 million ($18.4m) in payments for unpaid bills in relation to its work on Britain’s emergency-services radio network, which has yet to be rolled out.

As reported by The Telegraph, Motorola filed a lawsuit in the High Court in London last month.

The lawsuit was filed through Airwave Solutions, a company that created the emergency services comms system and was eventually bought by Motorola in 2016.

Motorola has accused the UK government of a “breach of contract” over the money it said it is owed relating to the Airwave service.

The company is seeking £13.5m ($17m) from the government, plus interest, which as of last month stood at around £1m ($1.27m).

Airwave had been selected to deliver the Emergency Services Network (ESN) for police, fire, and ambulance services in England, Scotland, and Wales.

First proposed in 2015, the ESN was meant to have been in use by 2020, but it has been plagued by delays.

In March of last year, the Home Office revealed it was unsure when the UK government’s 4G-based ESN would be ready after a report from the National Audit Office (NAO) found it could be delayed until 2029 or later. The report revealed that the Home Office paid out £45 million ($56m) to terminate its contract with Motorola Solutions two years early for the delivery of the core voice application for the ESN.

According to Motorola’s lawsuit, the government hasn’t paid the company anything since the contract was terminated.

The same report found that the turn-off date for the aging Airwave system may be pushed back further after already having been twice extended, first to 2022 and then to 2026.

It’s not been cheap either, with the Home Office having spent £2 billion ($2.5bn) on the ESN project so far, while spending a further £2.9bn ($3.6bn) to keep Airwave going.

In 2022, the UK imposed a price cap on how much Motorola Solutions can charge the emergency services to use its Airwave radio network, following an investigation by the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA).

The CMA stated that Motorola held a monopoly in its role as a service provider, and took advantage of this to secure around £160m in excess profits.

Motorola rejected the claims as “unfounded and incorrect calculation” of excess profits, but did agree to end its involvement in the ESN in the same year.