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Vodafone bosses to meet MPs over treatment of franchisees
The Guardian
|December 19, 2025
Vodafone executives will meet MPs next month as parliamentarians step up scrutiny of the telecoms group’s alleged treatment of scores of people running its stores.
It follows claims of suicide and attempted suicide among shopkeepers who had agreed to deals to run retail outlets for the £18bn company, revealed by the Guardian last week. As a result, the government may consider new laws to correct the power imbalance in franchise agreements.
A group of 62 former Vodafone franchisees brought a high court claim last year, alleging the company had “unjustly enriched” itself by slashing sales commissions paid to small business owners for running the stores in 2020,
This story is from the December 19, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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