Intelsat<\/b> has hit back at SES<\/b> for a claim filed in its bankruptcy case earlier this year that Intelsat owes SES $1.8 billion for an alleged breach of contract, arguing that SES\u2019s claims have no merit.<\/p>\n
In July, SES asked the court for no less than $1.8 billion in damages, claiming Intelsat breached fiduciary duties as part of the C-Band Alliance (CBA) and \u201cunjust enrichment at SES\u2019s expense and other related tortious conduct by Intelsat.\u201d <\/p>\n
The CBA was formed in 2018 by Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat<\/strong>, and Telesat<\/strong> to facilitate the FCC<\/strong> C-band spectrum clearing process. The group pushed for a private spectrum auction, but the FCC voted in February to go with a public auction and accelerated relocation payments to satellite operators. After that decision, Intelsat petitioned the FCC for adjustments to its proposed payout plan, asking for 60% to 70% of the accelerated relocation payments. SES issued a heated response, calling it an \u201cegregious attempt to capture a greater share of the proposed accelerated relocation payments,\u201d and this led to SES\u2019s claim against Intelsat. <\/p>\n In Intelsat\u2019s Oct. 19 filing, the operator argues SES\u2019s claims have no merit because the CBA agreement does not govern the companies conduct under the FCC\u2019s public auction, as the CBA was formed only to manage C-band clearing under a market-based approach. \u201cThe simple fact is that the [CBA\u2019s] agreement\u2019s payment scheme does not work outside the private market-based approach, because the agreement was only intended to cover, and only covers, a private market-based approach. The shoe will not fit the approach adopted by the FCC,\u201d Intelsat wrote. <\/p>\n Intelsat also argued that the accelerated relocation payments it may receive are due to its own spectrum clearing efforts and its own share of the service market, unrelated to any work done in the CBA. \u201cSES has not, will not, and cannot play any role in whether Intelsat receives a payment or how much it will receive,\u201d Intelsat wrote. <\/p>\n Further, Intelsat asks that if any of SES\u2019s claims are accepted, that SES be put to the back of the line of creditors because of \u201cinequitable conduct,\u201d that SES improperly disclosed information about Intelsat\u2019s supposed market share in an ex parte submission made to the FCC. Intelsat argues that SES\u2019s \u201cbad faith disclosure\u201d may cause Intelsat to receive $1.634 billion less from the FCC\u2019s public auction process. <\/p>\n \u201cWe believe that SES\u2019s claims have no merit and have objected on numerous legal grounds,\u201d Melissa Longo, Intelsat media relations manager said in a statement. \u201cTo the extent that any portion of the claims are allowed, we have asked the court to \u2018equitably subordinate\u2019 such claims \u2013 effectively putting SES behind other Intelsat creditors for purposes of recovery \u2013 based on SES\u2019s conduct in matters related to the former C-Band Alliance.\u201d <\/p>\n The claims will likely be addressed at Intelsat\u2019s next court hearing set for Nov. 23. This dispute can not impact the C-band clearing process as both operators along, with Telesat and Eutelsat, have agreed to clear the C-band, and submitted relocation plans. The auction will commence Dec. 8. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Intelsat has hit back at SES for a claim filed in its bankruptcy case earlier this year that Intelsat owes SES $1.8 billion for an alleged breach of contract, arguing that SES\u2019s claims have no merit. In July, SES asked the court for no less than $1.8 billion in damages, claiming Intelsat breached fiduciary duties […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48977,"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-58802","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\/58802"}],"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=58802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}