Thailand’s Central Administrative Court has ruled that state-owned operator TOT must pay market leader AIS a total of THB1.35 billion ($45 million) relating to a revenue sharing concession.
The sum arises from an international direct dialing service that the providers offered between November 2008 and September 2012. The 900MHz concession agreement that covered this service expired in September 2015, and in May 2017 the Thai Arbitration Institute ruled that TOT must pay AIS its revenue share.
TOT attempted to petition this ruling but the CAC has now dismissed this challenge, giving TOT 30 days to pursue an appeal in Thailand’s Supreme Administrative Court.
AIS has recently emerged victorious from a number of long-running disputes, including another with TOT which the operators settled in September 2019 with an agreement that will see AIS leasing back TOT’s towers for the next ten years.
Earlier this month, AIS won another case against state-owned CAT Telecom after the Arbitration Committee ruled that AIS subsidiary Digital Phone did not need to compensate CAT following the expiration of their concession agreement. However, while AIS was quick to claim victory, CAT still has 90 days to petition the committee’s ruling.
CAT opened the case in January 2018, demanding that Digital Phone transfer the ownership of an infrastructure holding including a call centre system and 4,657 towers, as well as claiming compensation of THB13.4 billion ($445.9 million) plus THB116 million per month for interest and lost opportunity.
