Vodafone Australia chief technology officer Benoit Hanssen is leaving the company after three years to take up a new post with the Hutchison Group.

The European Commission has blocked the proposed acquisition of O2 by Hutchison under the EU merger regulations, expressing strong concerns that UK mobile customers would have had less choice and paid higher prices as a result of a takeover.

Vodafone Hutchison Australia has at last seen an increase in customer numbers. But it will be a long road back, and the company is still losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year.