SES <\/b>has asked Intelsat<\/b>\u2019s bankruptcy court for a summary judgement against the satellite operator, arguing that Intelsat \u201crepudiated\u201d its agreement with SES over the C-band clearing. <\/p>\n
This latest filing from June 16 is an update in the dispute between the two operators that has gone on for nearly a year as part of Intelsat\u2019s bankruptcy proceedings. In July 2020, SES filed a $1.8 billion claim against Intelsat, claiming the two companies agreed to split C-band clearing proceeds equally, but Intelsat went back on that agreement. Both operators are in the midst of clearing the C-band spectrum for 5G use, as mandated by the FCC<\/b>. Intelsat disputes the claims and has accused SES of running a \u201csmear campaign\u201d against the company. <\/p>\n
The bankruptcy court has scheduled a two-week trial of SES\u2019s claims to begin on September 20, but SES has asked for a summary judgement instead. A hearing on the summary judgment motions is scheduled for August 19. <\/p>\n
SES\u2019s latest, heavily redacted 80-page filing details collaboration with Intelsat from the onset of the C-Band Alliance (CBA) to prove that Intelsat broke its agreement. It mentions phone calls, emails, and communications from Intelsat senior leadership including CEO Steven Spengler; General Counsel Michelle Bryan; and CFO David Tolley that SES believes proves that Intelsat knowingly went back on its agreement. <\/p>\n
After the FCC set a public auction, \u201cIntelsat continued to work jointly with SES, stringing SES along \u2014 even toasting over celebratory drinks \u2014 until the parties had secured $9.7 billion in accelerated relocation payments. Hours after the FCC publicly announced the $9.7 billion amount, Intelsat called SES to say the 50\/50 deal was off,\u201d SES lawyers argue in the filing. <\/p>\n
One redacted section details how Spengler called SES CEO Steve Collar at 3 a.m. to explain and \u201cconfessed\u201d feelings on the situation, sounding \u201ccontrite.\u201d <\/p>\n
The final FCC order allows for roughly $4.9 billion in accelerated relocation payments for Intelsat and roughly $4 billion for SES. SES said its 50\/50 interest in the difference is approximately $421 million.<\/p>\n
Intelsat has argued that the FCC\u2019s public auction approach voided the agreement with SES and says the parties did not consider such an approach. <\/p>\n
But SES disagrees with that in the latest filing, and says that they knew a public auction was possible. SES said the agreement had points to address a possible public auction. While Eutelsat<\/strong> was able to leave the CBA without penalty, SES said that Intelsat and SES had strict termination requirements, and a public auction was not among those conditions.<\/p>\n \u201cIntelsat\u2019s abuse of the parties\u2019 trust and interdependence, cultivated over more than a year of working hand-in-glove, demonstrates a willful, deliberate, bad-faith breach of fiduciary duties and calls for punitive damages,\u201d SES argues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SES has asked Intelsat\u2019s bankruptcy court for a summary judgement against the satellite operator, arguing that Intelsat \u201crepudiated\u201d its agreement with SES over the C-band clearing. This latest filing from June 16 is an update in the dispute between the two operators that has gone on for nearly a year as part of Intelsat\u2019s bankruptcy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}