True now looking at Civil Court
True Corp Plc announced yesterday that it was considering going to the Civil Court or Administrative Court to force TOT Plc into paying the Bt9 billion awarded to it by an arbitration judge.
"This is our right. True is entitled to the compensation as ordered by the arbitration court, as we did not break any rules," said Supachai Chearavanont, president of True. True, which provides cellular service under a concession granted by TOT, entered into arbitration with the state agency in August 2002, seeking a share of the benefits gained by TOT from providing special services on True's network. On February 17 the arbitration court ruled that TOT had to pay True more than Bt9 billion, plus interest, within 60 days. However, TOT last week appealed to the Central Administrative Court to override the arbitration judge's decision. The appeal hinged on the fact that before Prasit Kovilaikul became chairman of the arbitration court, he had been an independent director of CP Allianz Insurance Co, a joint venture of Germany's Allianz AG and the Charoen Pokphand Group. The CP Group is True's major shareholder. Prasit also works for Huachiew Chalermprakiet University, which has CP as a sponsor. Prinya Visessiri, TOT executive vice president for legal matters, said the state agency knew about Prasit's positions for some time. But its appeal was made after the Supreme Administrative Court ruled on the privatisation of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand. Egat's bid to become a public company was shot down partly due to Olarn Chaipravat, a key figure in planning Egat's privatisation, showing conflicts of interest. "Before this, we didn't veto Prasit's involvement in the arbitration court because we had no benchmark. The Egat case gave us a precedent on how we can link conflicts of interest," Prinya said. Supachai argued that Prasit was nominated by Allianz, and not CP Group, to become an independent director of CP Allianz Insurance. "I have a clarification letter from Allianz," he said. Regarding Huachiew, CP did sponsor the university, but that support was limited to construction of a building 14 years ago. He also said that if the Central Administrative Court overrode the arbitration court's ruling, another arbitration judge would be appointed and the finding would be the same: with True is entitled to share benefits from its network. "TOT should negotiate with True. If this is unresolved and new problems arise, there will be many deadlocks." Usanee MongkolpornThe Nation
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