The long running saga between the Mexican telecoms regulator, government and a group of disgruntled telcos may finally end next week.
Sergio Legorreta, country head of TMT and IP at law firm Baker & McKenzie, has told BN Americas he thinks number three…
The long running saga between the Mexican telecoms regulator, government and a group of disgruntled telcos may finally end next week.
Sergio Legorreta, country head of TMT and IP at law firm Baker & McKenzie, has told BN Americas he thinks number three mobile operator Iusacell’s case to delay the handover of a tranche of spectrum from the 30MHz auction in the 1.7GHz band to a Nextel/Televisa consortium will be thrown out of court next week.
While there are still other lawsuits pending, Legorreta said the transport and communications ministry is keen to broker some sort of agreement between Iusacell and Nextel/Televisa to resolve the dispute in which Iusacell alleges the consortium – the only qualified bidder – won the spectrum with an unfairly low offer.
According to local newspaper La Jornada, Iusacell has promised to lift all of its lawsuits if a “public and transparent mechanism” is established to make sure the consortium pays Ps5bn (US$396m), which Iusacell argues is the licence’s real value.
According to Legorreta, while the bidding price with which Nextel/Televisa won the licence legally cannot be changed, Iusacell could ask for the payment method to be changed.
He believes that Grupo Salinas – controller of Iusacell – is asking there to be “several payments”, which could enable a higher initial payment.