Decision on phone rates — May 3

After hearing argument from attorneys for the two telephone companies and the arbitration panel at the Port-of-Spain Civil Court yesterday, Madame Justice Carol Gobin reserved judgement.

The dispute was taken before the courts when TSTT filed an application requesting leave for judicial review against the arbitration panel’s decision to come up with an interim decision on the interconnection rates.

The panel, which was appointed by the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT) on March 31 to resolve the dispute between the companies, took this decision when it failed to determine final interconnection rates by its April 18 deadline.

According to attorney appearing for TSTT, Martin Daley SC, the panel had made a mistake when it had used the policy objectives and broad language used in the Telecommunications Act to confer upon itself, power in a jurisdiction it did not have. He said the panel was out of order to extend its scope to include the making of an interim interconnection rates decision.

However, attorney for the panel, Deborah Peake SC, argued that Parliament, in its wisdom, had left the power it allowed an arbitration panel quite vague for a reason. She questioned the wisdom in the panel’s ability to make interim decisions in other matters, and being prohibited now from fixing temporary interconnection rates.

Peake said three months was a long time for any commercial entity to wait for final rates to be determined.

Digicel’s attorney Christopher Hamel-Smith took on the role of intervener at yesterday’s hearing.