SingTel, StarHub reach out-of-court dealTODAYonline
Tuesday • September 4, 2007
Johnson Choo
[email protected]Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) and StarHub said yesterday they have reached an out-of-court settlement on disputes that arose from the 1995 Network Lease Agreement (NLA) and 2002 Network Lease Agreement signed between SingTel and StarHub Cable Vision (formerly known as Singapore Cable Vision).
Details of the agreement were confidential and not made available, but the telcos said the settlement will put to rest all outstanding issues between the companies over the two agreements on StarHub's use of SingTel's fixed-line telecommunications network.
"We are pleased with the amicable out-of court settlement," said Mr Allen Lew, CEO Singapore of SingTel. "The matter has run its course Â… (and) It is time to move on and focus on our business to develop and grow Singapore's Infocomm industry."
StarHub's CEO, Mr Terry Clontz, said the "disputes have gone on long enough. It is necessary to have a closure on this chapter and move on to more meaningful activities that will augment Singapore's position as a world-class infocomm and media hub".
The disputes centre on SingTel's claims that StarHub misused its network to serve non-residential properties such as schools, embassies and a few firms in the town area, and resulted in a delay of the islandwide roll-out of cable televisions to homes, with some 20,000 households not cabled as of the beginning of 2007.
SingTel sued StarHub in 2003, and the Infocomm Development Authority had then confirmed SingTel's claim the NLA signed in 1995 only covered the provision of cable services to residential properties.
When the case was first heard by Justice Kan Ting Chiu in September 2004, it ended with the judge handing an empty victory to SingTel in April 2005. While StarHub did violate the contract, Justice Kan dismissed SingTel's claim for damages, citing a clause that indemnified both parties from "indirect, incidental" damages.
Appealing to the Court of Appeal made up by former-Chief Justice Yong Pung How, Judge of Appeal Chao Hock Tin and Justice Belinda Ang, SingTel was awarded the crucial right to a damages payout from StarHub at the beginning of 2006.
StarHub had claimed that SingTel was seeking damages amounting to about $32 million for each year of breach, or $22,000 per building every month.
SingTel said yesterday the out-of-court settlement would not have any material impact on the telco, while StarHub said it "will not have any negative impact on us financially as we have already provisioned for such cost previously."
