THE colour orange could be at the centre of a High Court drama if a compromise cannot be found between Stelios Haji-Ioannou and a leading telecoms group.

The founder of easyJet yesterday announced his latest venture would be an assault on the budget end of the mobile phone industry.

The announcement caused consternation at Orange, the telecoms operation that employs more than 5,000 staff in the North-East.

Orange is understood to be concerned because Mr Haji-Ioannou's easyGroup of companies uses orange as its corporate colour.

A spokeswoman for Orange said it would cause confusion if easyGroup used that colour for its new business venture.

She said: "We will do whatever is necessary to protect our customers' best interests."

EasyGroup announced yesterday that an agreement had been reached with Danish telecoms group TDC that would see the launch of easyMobile by December.

The group plans to extend its operations across 11 other European countries, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

Under the deal with TDC, the Danish company will handle customer billing and network operations for EasyMobile.

The Internet will be a key tool in easyMobile's plans to cut the cost of recruiting customers.

The only products it intends to sell are SIM cards, the removable memory chips that fit into the back of mobile phones and contain user identity codes and relevant personal data.