Judge dismisses claim Third Wave

August 15, 2008 10:53 AM

The judge dismissed the more than 118 million guilders claim of telecommunication company Third Wave against the Central Government again. It is a claim on two counts, inclusive interest.

The claim for not supplying international telephone lines is prescribed. Regarding the government’s hesitation to grant a concession, the court doesn’t see any grounds to come back on the earlier judgment that the wrongful refusal of October 30, 2001 has not led to extra delays and thus not to damages.

Third Wave says being currently active provider in the international telephony, by selling minutes to foreign companies like KPN and AT&T.

his lawsuit runs for 5 years already and is twofold. Third Wave received in 1992 permission for the project Telemarketing & Data Entry and needed telephone lines for that. The Central Government didn’t make those available, because Third Wave didn’t fulfill the conditions. According to the court, the Central Government couldn’t make a reasonable case for that, but they did manage to plea that the claim is statute-barred. Third Wave didn’t start a compensation case until in 2002.

The second part of the compensation claim is regarding the concession for public telecommunication infrastructure that wasn’t granted till March 26, 2002, while the request was submitted in 1997 already. Because of that, Third Wave’s plans to provide broadband internet and perform international telephone traffic, were seriously delayed. According to Third Wave, the damage form 2001 till 2007 is almost 86 millions.

The judge referred to earlier verdicts in this case in 2003 and 2004, in which the denial of the concession was considered unlawful, but there was no damage. The concession was still granted five months later. It wasn’t till 2002 that the company could sign an agreement with the Venezuelan CANTV, as a result of which they lost income. Because of the unlawful handling of the Central government, the financial situation of Third Wave got worse. The business activities couldn’t be started till 2006 and on much smaller scale than planned. The company also missed out on contracts with other carriers. For these arguments, the judge referred again to the verdict in 2003.

(Source: National Newspaper Amigoe)

August 13, 2008