SES, Intelsat expenses action suspended
February 6, 2023
SES has had a legal action running against Intelsat which asks for Intelsat to pay what SES alleged was Intelsat’s 50 per cent of the costs of running the C-Band Alliance. The action is paused while the larger legal action against Intelsat and where SES is suing for a 50/50 division of the FCC’s Accelerated Relocation Payments. That action will be heard in the next few weeks.
The C-band Alliance was formed to plan an auction of SES and Intelsat’s C-band frequencies. However, the FCC came in with its own auction of the spectrum.
In an agreed position at the US Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, Virginia, SES and Intelsat reached a conditional agreement over the C-Band Alliance’s costs and expenses.
The two have agreed not to pursue expense reimbursement claims against one another, but have not waived the right to argue that expenses would reduce or increase the calculation of SES’s Accelerated Relocation Payment (ARP, that is the FCC’s payments for clearing the C-band frequencies) claim (should SES prevail on its appeal which is still running).
SES has also agreed that if the ARP claim is finally resolved in Intelsat’s favour, SES will pay $100,000 (€92,653) as full and final settlement for litigation costs.
As to SES’s own appeal in the claim for a 50 per cent payment of the FCC’s C-band incentive payments, which is very much still running, is scheduled to see Intelsat submit its response to the SES opening brief today (February 6th). SES then must issue its further response to the Court by March 3rd and the action is scheduled to be heard by the Court on March 20th.
Other posts by Chris Forrester:
- Virgin Galactic in stock split
- Thuraya-3 suffers major problem
- AST SpaceMobile hit by Class Action
- Optimism under threat at SES
- Rivada visits Terran Orbital’s manufacturing HQ
- Avanti wins spectrum debt obligation case
- SpaceX breaks records for re-use launchers
- IRIS2 already in trouble?
- Intelsat contemplates next steps