An entrant in Colombia’s recent spectrum auction has asked to retract its bid after accidentally offering to pay ten times more than the going rate for the licence.
The bid was lodged by Partners, which is a bidding vehicle for Novator Partners, the owner of Chile’s new market entrant WOM.
The operator put in an offer for Blocks 2, 5 and 6 in the 2500MHz band. However, its bid for Block 2 was COP1.748 trillion (USD534.2 million) – a vast amount more than the COP293.2 billion it bid for Block 5 and the COP173.5 billion for Block 6.
Partners has appealed to Colombia’s Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications (Ministerio de Tecnologias de la Informacion y las Comunicaciones, MinTIC) to revoke the higher bid. It has specified that its offers for the other two blocks remain valid.
A statement from the Ministry read: “The operator indicates that there is an inconsistency in the value offered in one of the blocks and incurred in error. The MinTIC, in the light of the rules established in the auction, and the regulations in force, will study the application and will decide on it in the coming weeks.”
