Dear Editor,

All of us at LIME and, I dare say, many thousands of Jamaicans were truly baffled by Digicel Jamaica’s CEO, Mark Linehan when he described last Thursday’s (February 11) judgement of the Supreme Court which went squarely in LIME’s favour as “fantastic news”.

Since Mr Linehan’s effusive and very misleading remarks induced at least one local newspaper to carry an article on the matter with the rather confusing headline that both LIME and Digicel were “claiming victory” based on the Court ruling, we think a closer look at the judgement itself is in order.

For those unfamiliar with the matter, LIME took legal action against Digicel because Digicel had blocked LIME’s international call circuits in December 2008 and January 2009 in direct contravention of the contract between Digicel and LIME.

In the judgement that Mr Linehan described as “fantastic news” the Court ruled that Digicel was now to “be restrained… from disrupting, reducing, decommissioning, terminating or otherwise interfering with” the interconnectivity capacity provided for under the current interconnection agreement between Digicel and LIME.

The “fantastic” judgement also goes on to state that Digicel should “restore (LIME’s) interconnectivity capacity to 100 per cent — “particularly on the circuits that Digicel had disrupted” — until the matter goes to trial.

And finally, the Court ordered Digicel to pay LIME’s costs and has also declared if “Digicel fails to comply with the terms of this order it will be in contempt of Court” and “the officer of the company may be liable to be imprisoned and the company may have its assets confiscated”.

While I make no claim to legal expertise, I think the judgement shows that the case had a clear winner and a very obvious loser.

Indeed, LIME is pleased that its circuits have now been restored and wholeheartedly agrees that the judgement is fantastic. Fantastic for LIME, for consumers and for law and order as LIME remains perplexed that any responsible corporate entity could behave so anti-competitively and so flagrantly in breach of contract.

Mr Linehan’s interpretation of the judgement is nothing short of questionable, and he must be called out for his brazen and transparently flawed attempt to claim “victory” in the face of resounding defeat.

Errol K Miller

Regional vice president, corporate communications

LIME