Intelsat “steals billions” claims SES
October 13, 2021
Last week it was an Intelsat motion to its bankruptcy court that accused SES of being “on a warpath” as far as its allegations over SES claims concerning how the FCC’s C-band incentive payments were concerned.
SES responded on October 11th with a detailed rebuttal saying it had proposed “numerous compromises” to Intelsat and asked the bankruptcy court to permit SES to take four depositions from Intelsat witnesses “who have personal knowledge highly relevant to SES’s objections”.
SES, in its motion, alleges that “At every stage, and at every decision point, [the] debtors and various creditor groups have manoeuvred to divert value away from Intelsat US LLC.”
Intelsat US is SES’s contractual counterparty to the C-Band Consortium Agreement, and it is this particular Intelsat entity which is entitled to Intelsat’s share of [the FCC’s] Accelerated Relocation Payments (ARPs).
SES also argues that it “undisputed” that it is Intelsat US which carried out substantially all of the work associated with clearing the C-Band and the FCC’s payment of some $3.39 billion.
However, SES says that Intelsat’s bankruptcy Recovery Model allocates “a mere” and “nominal” 4.5 per cent of that ARP value to Intelsat US.
“SES is entitled to testimony from percipient witnesses that will allow SES to demonstrate that the Second Amended Plan cannot be confirmed because it steals billions of dollars in value from Intelsat US, which at every relevant point in time has had no one—and in particular the four witnesses whose depositions are at issue in this Motion— protecting its interests and the interests of its creditors,” states the SES motion.
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