A French appeals court has told France Telecom (NYSE: FTE) it can keep exclusivity on its Orange Sport IPTV channnel. After IPTV rivals SFR and Iliad brought a case in February, the Paris Commercial Court had ruled that Orange had an unfair competitive advantage because the service is only available to Orange’s ADSL internet subscribers. But on Friday it overturned that decision, meaning it gets to hang on to a package of exclusive live top-flight French football, Reuters reports. It’s not over yet - France’s anti-trust authority is set to make its own ruling on the sport channel as well as Orange’s cinema channel, in June.

France has long been a world leader in IPTV: according to one estimate the country has 6.2 million subscribers with Orange the leading provider on 2.2 million IPTV customers. All of which makes the regulations of the company’s top TV companies worth watching—UK regulator Ofcom last ruled that BSkyB should offer rivals such as Virgin Media (NSDQ: VMED) fair access to its channels, which paved the way for channels including Sky1 returning to Virgin TV customers following a retraction.

Meanwhile, Orange’s plans for a UK IPTV service are still missing in action after more than two years of delays: the last we heard, Orange said it was still “surveying” the market for a possible launch and carrying out trials in Yorkshire.

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