Media house WIN Caribbean Ltd has until Monday to pay almost $5 million in outstanding licensing fees to the Telecommunications Authority of T&T (TATT) or it will be forced to shut down its television and radio stations.
The company’s owner, Shantel Jaikaran, yesterday lost her application for an injunction which would have forced TATT to grant it a temporary extension of its licence whilst it challenged TATT’s decision not to renew it until the arrears, owed since 2011, were cleared.
In a 17-page judgment, High Court Justice Vasheist Kokaram ruled he could not grant the injunction as the company had failed to raise an arguable case that TATT acted irrationally and unfairly when it made its decision earlier this month.
“Indeed through the vehicle of interim relief WIN will in effect obtain the luxury of operating its radio and television station after the expiry of its concession and licences and in the face of accepted breaches of their conditions. I would have expected a much more serious complaint mounted against TATT on clearly articulated, not fanciful or speculative, justiciable grounds to have obtained such relief,” Kokaram said.
In her application for judicial review, Jaikaran claimed TATT had informed her that the company’s non-transferable licence was not being renewed because it was in the name of her father, Mohan, who died in April last year. TATT had agreed to consider transferring the licence and recommending its renewal if the arrears were cleared.
Jaikaran had claimed that she only learned of the debt after her father’s death and needed time to sell some of the company’s assets and could not meet next Monday’s deadline set by the authority. She had also contended that she was in ongoing negotiations with TATT when it made its final decision and was not consulted before being informed on February 17.
Describing Jaikaran’s claim as a “humanitarian plea without justiciable grounds,” Kokaram ruled that TATT acted within its powers in adjudicating on the company’s licence issue.
“TATT’s decision is not outrageous or in defiance of logic nor beyond the range of responses open to a reasonable regulator of a liberalised telecommunications industry,” Kokaram added.
Kokaram also criticised Jaikaran for waiting on the eve of the expiration of the company’s licence to file a lawsuit and intensify negotiations with TATT, which he said should have been finalised by her father before his death.
“What is disappointing is that WIN knowing what was at stake in terms of its radio and television operations would take the risk of not having put in an application for renewal of the licence as soon as possible or make an application for a licence or concession in its own name and waited for the 11th hour to make entreaties with TATT and present payment plans, yet to date it is in no better position to guarantee the full liquidation of the outstanding fees,” Kokaram said.
As part of his judgment, Kokaram also ordered that the company pay TATT’s legal fees for defending the injunction application.
Earlier this week, Shantel and her mother, Indra, made a public announcement on the company’s television station, WIN TV, claiming it was being “hounded out of business.”
In the statement Shantel Jaikaran gave no reason for the company’s trouble but said there was a possibility of losing their licence from the TATT and that there were people who did not want the company to survive.
The company was represented by Sophia Chote, SC, Anil Maraj and Nesha Abiraj, while Deborah Peake, SC, Ravi Heffes-Doon and Natasha Bisram represented TATT. (DA)