ICC orders VSNL to grant access to FLAG's Mumbai cable landing stn

Mumbai, May 26 (UNI) An Arbitration Tribunal of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Court of Arbitration has ordered the Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) to grant FLAG -- a company promoted by Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group -- access to the Mumbai cable landing station of the Flag East Asia (FEA).

The Tribunal by majority decision has ordered VSNL the access to the FEA cable system for the purposes of installation, inspection, testing, training and other functions so as to equip capacity of the FEA cable system to any level, VSNL informed BSE to this effect.

An Arbitration Tribunal of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Court of Arbitration issued a ruling on certain issues in a matter initiated by FLAG Telecom Group Ltd (FLAG) in December 2004.

The matter concerned the interpretation of certain provision of the Construction and Maintenance Agreement (C&MA) governing the FLAG East Asia (FEA) cable system to which FLAG and the company, and various other parties, were signatories.

The Tribunal has further declared that the company is entitled to such terms and conditions pursuant to the C&MA to enable the lease of assignable capacity to ITEs. The company, at this stage, is not in a position to estimate the financial consequences of this award, if any, and in what time frame these would become applicable, if at all.

FLAG claimed that the agreement should be read to provide a right of access for FLAG to the company's Mumbai cable landing station of the FEA cable system for the purposes of installing equipment for the upgrade of FEA at Mumbai and to lease such upgraded capacity to International Telecom Entities (ITE).

It also claimed damages to compensate it for loss of revenue and market.

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