A consortium which bid for the controversial second mobile phone licence granted by the State has dropped its legal action challenging the award of the licence in 1996.
Comcast applied to the High Court to withdraw proceedings against the State, businessman Denis O'Brien, his company Esat Digifone which won the licence and Independent TD Michael Lowry who was Minister for Communications in the Government which awarded the licence.
In a statement Mr O'Brien and Mr Lowry welcomed the development.
Comcast made a contribution towards the legal costs of Mr O'Brien and paid Mr Lowry's costs in full.
The award of the second mobile phone licence was investigated by the Moriarty Tribunal.
It found it was "beyond doubt" that Michael Lowry imparted substantive information to Denis O'Brien which was "of significant value and assistance to him in securing" the licence for Esat.
It concluded that over a three-year period Michael Lowry received payments from Denis O'Brien through a series of "clandestine" property deals involving third parties.
The findings have been disputed by both Mr Lowry and Mr O'Brien.
In a detailed statement today, Mr O'Brien repeated his rejection of the Tribunal's findings.
He said "not a single person who had any actual involvement in the awarding of the second mobile phone licence gave any evidence of any wrongdoing in that process."
"The legal advice given to me was that there was no possibility whatsoever of having the Moriarty Tribunal’s non-binding opinions overturned by the Irish Courts because the Tribunal was deemed to exist outside of the Administration of Justice in Ireland," he said.
Mr Lowry said: "The Tribunal opinions are not substantiated by facts. The assessment and award process was fair, impartial, lawful, and the withdrawal by Comcast international is evidence of this fact."
"The remaining legal challenge by Persona will continue to be defended with the same vigour and certainty," he added.
The consortium originally included US telecoms group Comcast and businessman Declan Ganley.
