RCom offers to pay ₹500 crore to settle Ericsson dispute
RCom on Tuesday offered an upfront payment of ₹500 crore to its operational creditor Ericsson, which has got an insolvency order against the Anil Ambani group firm.
During the proceedings of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal ( NCLAT), senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for RCom, suggested an upfront payment. To this, the NCLAT bench headed by chairman justice SJ Mukhopadhaya suggested settlement between parties. “You know the fate of operational creditors (in corporate resolution process). You may not even get 5%. If you want we would give you time for settlement,” the bench said.
Ericsson had total dues of ₹978 crore, which have now increased to ₹1,600 crore, counsel appearing for Ericsson informed. “If you want, we can allow settlement. Find out ways and means to solve the issue,” the bench said.
The tribunal has listed for Wednesday the hearing of interim prayer of RCom to stay the NCLT order, which has directed to start insolvency proceedings against it over the Ericsson plea. During the proceedings, Sibal said that RCom has a total debt of around ₹46,000 crore.
He further added that RIL’s Jio, which is buying RCom’s assets, has offered ₹17,000 crore of upfront payment along with spectrum dues and transfer of debts.
On May 15, the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) had admitted an insolvency petition filed by Ericsson against Reliance Communications and two of its subsidiaries seeking to recover unpaid dues. Ericsson, which had signed a 7-year deal in 2014 to operate and manage RCom’s nationwide telecom network, had alleged that it had not been paid the dues.
Telecom regulator Trai on Tuesday issued new draft norms to curb pesky calls and SMSes by using blockchain technology to ensure that telemarketing messages are sent only to those who have subscribed to them, and that too by authorized entities.
“Blockchain will ensure two things—non-repudiative and confidentiality. Only those authorised to access details will be able to access subscriber details and only when they need to deliver service... Trai will become first organisation to implement this kind of regulation,” Trai chairman RS Sharma told reporters.
The Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations 2018 draft will be open for public comment till June 11. The new technology based norms will record all communication between subscribers and entities, capturing customer consent for information and authorised telemarketing agencies.
Trai secretary SK Gupta said: “It is learnt that many telemarketing firms get registered with telecom companies to obtain subscriber details. The new system will give access to only authorised agencies at the time they need to deliver service and details of only those subscribers who have agreed to receive the message. The digital record will show entire communication between entries involved.”
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