Gov’t told to pay MOP200 million compensation to Cable TV

The litigation between Macau Cable TV and the local government regarding the latter’s failure to prevent the broadcasting of copyright-protected programs by public antenna companies seems to have reached a conclusion.
The administration was trying to void a decision made by a Court of Arbitration in 2012, which had ordered the government to pay MOP200 million compensation to Macau Cable TV. According to newspaper Ponto Final, the Court of Second Instance (TSI) judged the case on July 9 dismissing the government’s appeal.
The ruling was not yet made public, but the Times confirmed yesterday with a legal source that this should put an end to a case that pitted Macau Cable TV, which has held an exclusive concession for cable television services since 1999, against the so-called public antenna companies, which had never obtained legal permission to air TV programs that are copyright-protected.
Besides seeking compensation from the government in a Court of Arbitration, Macau Cable TV filed a separate lawsuit to seek compensation from 12 public antenna companies for acts of unfair competition. In July 2012, the Court of First Instance ruled out the company’s compensation claims. The collective of judges considered that “not all the requirements” to ask for compensation had been fulfilled by Macau Cable TV, since the broadcaster hadn’t proved that it suffered losses because of the public antenna companies’ activity.
The litigation with the public antenna companies ended with an agreement sponsored by the Bureau of Telecommunication Regulations (DSRT), according to which the TV signals would be provided by Macau Cable TV and transmitted through the existing networks of the antenna companies. With that agreement, which lead to the creation of a publicly owned company to ensure the transmission of a package of 49 basic TV channels, Cable TV declared its waiver of seeking compensation from the antenna companies. However, the claims to compensation from the government continued to be analyzed by a Court of Arbitration. PB