The much-delayed legal action from SES against Intelsat over the division of FCC C-band incentive payments is scheduled to begin on February 7th. Two weeks have been allocated for the action.

While subject to last-minute delays and Court rules over the Covid anxieties, the lawyers in the action have agreed that witnesses might appear in person, or virtually, or both.

The pre-trial deadlines have been set and are that counsel for the litigants can file supplementary depositions on or before January 10th, with counter-depositions being filed by January 18th. The litigants have jointly agreed to provide their lists of incontrovertible facts by January 12th in an attempt to narrow the issues in the actual trial. An agreed position on admissible exhibits will be filed by the parties on January 28th. A final pre-trial conference is scheduled for February 1st subject to the Court’s availability.

The essence of the action is a dispute over how the FCC’s C-band incentive payments are allocated. SES is arguing that under the terms and agreements within the C-Band Alliance (“the Consortium Agreement”), and where Intelsat and SES were lead participants, it was agreed that the FCC’s payments would be made on a 50/50 basis between SES and Intelsat.

SES had also been arguing for punitive damages against Intelsat but that action has been dropped.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. Virgin Galactic in stock split
2. Thuraya-3 suffers major problem
3. AST SpaceMobile hit by Class Action
4. Optimism under threat at SES
5. Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ
6. Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case
7. SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers
8. IRIS2 already in trouble?
9. Intelsat contemplates next steps

Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite, Policy, Regulation

Tags: cband, FCC, Intelsat, SES