Orange (NYSE: FTE) CEO Stephane Richard is to stand trial in France for embezzlement, alongside Bernard Tapie, the colorful entrepreneur who has previously served time in jail for attempting to "fix" soccer matches. As The Guardian reports, Richard was chief of staff for former finance minister Christine Lagarde at the time of the alleged offense, oiling the wheels of a €400 million (US$474 million) out-of-court settlement to Tapie, who had taken legal action against Crédit Lyonnais, the formerly state-owned bank which he had accused of ripping him off in a business deal with Adidas. Tapie ended up personally pocketing more than €280 million ($331 million) from that settlement.

In less spicy Orange matters, the operator's enterprise market unit, Orange Business Services , has won the contract to deliver cloud services to the European Space Agency's Copernicus project, as part of the Airbus Consortium. Copernicus is an EU-backed Earth observation program that uses a family of dedicated satellites to harvest near-real-time data upon which models and forecasts for the planet can be based. Specifically, OBS will deploy its "Flexible Engine" cloud offering, which is built on OpenStack technology.

Various EU bodies have joined forces on cybersecurity, bringing into force an "inter-institutional arrangement" which establishes a permanent Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-EU) covering all the EU's agencies. The idea is that CERT-U will be able to provide a more co-ordinated response to cyber attacks on the EU than was previously possible.

Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC)'s MediaFirst platform has been chosen by Canada's Telus to power its Optik TV service. MediaFirst uses a cloud-based architecture and provides analytics tools which allow operators to better target content and promotions to viewers.

UK regulator Ofcom has accused mobile operator Three UK of potentially delaying a much needed auction of spectrum in the 2.3GHz and 3.4GHz bands (for 4G and 5G services) through its decision to appeal a High Court ruling that backed Ofcom's plans for a cap on the maximum share of spectrum held by any one network. As the Daily Telegraph reports, Three believed Ofcom's plans for a cap didn't go far enough, while BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA) thought a cap of any sort was unfair.

UK mobile operator EE is to extend its 4G network in the Galloway and West Dumfries region of Scotland, switching on eight new mobile sites. The extension will provide 4G service to large sections of the road network in the area that were previously unserved.

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading