BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FOLLOWING a lengthy court battle between telecommunications rivals Cable & Wireless Communications (CWC) and Digicel, a UK High Court ruling handed down today (Apr. 15) has given Cable and Wireless much to relish.
Since 2007, Digicel launched legal action against Cable & Wireless Communications (parent company of LIME) challenging what it viewed as efforts made to unlawfully delay Digicel’s entry into the telecoms markets in St Lucia, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Grenada, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Trinidad & Tobago and the Turks & Caicos Islands between 2002 and 2006. Similar allegations were also made against TSTT, the Trinidad & Tobago-based telecom operator, in which Cable & Wireless Communications holds a minority stake.
In delivering his judgment earlier today, London High Court judge Justice Morgan dismissed all the claims brought by Digicel in seven territories and the claim that Cable and Wireless senior management were involved in a “conspiracy” to delay Digicel’s entry into those Caribbean markets.
However, in the Turks & Caicos Islands, Cable & Wireless was found to have been in breach of the contract it had with Digicel, but he noted that that problem caused no delay and thus no loss to Digicel.
News of this court victory for CWC has been well-received by company executives, as the “successful defense” has now freed the company of “unnecessary distraction”, according to Tony Rice, Cable & Wireless Communications CEO.
“This is a resounding victory for Cable & Wireless Communications. This case has been a pointless waste of time and money. It was brought by Digicel on the eve of our AGM in July 2007 amid a fanfare of publicity and a statement that its claim was for several hundreds of millions of pounds. We maintained throughout that the case was baseless, and the UK High Court has now vindicated this,” he quoted in a press statement issued today.
LIME CEO David Shaw also welcomed the court ruling, noting that his company believes in winning for its customers with integrity.
“We can now put aside unnecessary distractions and get down to the challenge of growing our business in the face of the economic challenges facing Caribbean markets. This victory certainly gives us some momentum to get on with the task at hand,” Shaw stated.
An official communiqué issued by Digicel today states that the company is “extremely disappointed” with the ruling and blamed the “weak regulatory frameworks” in the Caribbean jurisdictions for the unfavourable court outcome.
Digicel stressed that the ruling of this court action has no impact on its operations and indicated that it is “currently considering its legal options”.
“As a champion of competition for the good of consumers, Digicel believes that Cable & Wireless Communications plc should be brought to book. As such, Digicel will be asking the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad & Tobago (TATT) to conduct a full inquiry into this matter to determine whether punitive action should be taken against TSTT in Trinidad - particularly taking into account the Judge’s finding that TSTT and Nortel conspired to produce false and misleading documents that were provided to TATT.”
The ruling brings to end over 77 sitting days in the London High Court, which heard evidence from over 40 witnesses. CWC will now take action against Digicel to seek the reimbursement of its costs from defending the matter.
