Dhaka Phone sues BTRC for Tk 4,000cr compensation

Muhammad Zahidul Islam

Dhaka Phone has filed a Tk 4,018.86 crore compensation suit against the telecom regulator for abruptly shutting down its service.
The land phone operator claimed that Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission's move to shut down the services of the private company six years back was unlawful.
“My client has been compelled to take the step as it has big term loans and debts to settle with banks,” said Morsheda Begum, a lawyer for Dhaka Phone.
Dhaka Telephone Company-owned Dhaka Phone's shuttering was violation of articles 27, 31, 40 and 41 of the constitution, according to the details of the case filed by the operator with the joint district judge's court.
Dhaka Phone made several attempts to get back the licence and return to operation but the regulator did not respond to their requests, the lawyer said.
In the last couple of years, Dhaka Phone also urged the regulator to give them the scope to pay back 20 percent of Tk 2.2 crore that the operator owes to the BTRC in down-payment and clear the rest in instalments.
The regulator did not respond to the call as well. Subsequently, the operator on November 4 last year filed a case and in January this year, sent the notice to the BTRC.
The BTRC has received the notice about the money suit and it will fight the legal battle, said a senior official of the telecom watchdog requesting anonymity.
Dhaka Phone claimed about Tk 2,460 crore as losses to business opportunities and reputation, according to the petition. The operator, however, did not elaborate on the losses.
“We have all the calculation and we can submit it to the court,” Morsheda Begum said.
The company also said it lost equipment worth Tk 401.17 crore because of the closure. At the time of the shutdown, in March 2010, the operator had five main switch centres in Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet, Bogra and Khulna and around 400 employees, mostly telecom engineers.
Dhaka Phone also claimed Tk 240 crore for the price of their allocated frequency and Tk 136.39 crore for the loss of its tower and civil work. In 2010, the BTRC switched off the services of five operators claiming that they were involved in illegal international call termination through the voice over internet protocol technology.
Then, Dhaka Phone had 77,000 active connections.
In 2012, the regulator gave back some of the licences, but not Dhaka Phone's, with several conditions, including the operators' promise that they would never claim any compensation.
In the petition, the plaintiff said it had taken a syndicated term-loan from 11 banks for procurement of telecom equipment, installation and establishment of the company, and the dues are increasing by the day.
 After the shutdown, two mobile operators and two banks filed four cases against Dhaka Phone demanding dues of about Tk 133.39 crore.
In 2013, National Telecom and World Tel also filed similar money suits claiming Tk 960 crore and Tk 553.2 crore respectively against the regulator and the telecom ministry. The cases are still pending.

Japan stocks tumble into bear market territory

Japanese shares have continued their slide, falling almost 7% in two days and entering bear market territory. Photo: AFP

BBC Online

Japanese shares have continued their slide, falling almost 7% in two days and entering bear market territory.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 dropped sharply by another 2.3% to close at 15,713.39, adding to Tuesday's 5.4% tumble.
The index has lost more than 20% since mid-2015, meaning that it entered a bear market as investors lost their confidence.
Latest concerns have been fuelled by a strengthening of the yen, which is expected to hurt exports.
The worry is that the currency is seen as a safe haven in an insecure regional economic context. If the yen keeps appreciating, it could hurt companies' international competitiveness and cut into the export sector's profits.
Over the past few days, the yen has been rising against the US dollar, despite the Bank of Japan's recent introduction of negative interest rates.
Japan's lenders were amongst the hardest hit as the negative rates are expected to squeeze their already tight profit margins.
The banks Sumitomo and Nomura lost 4% and 3.5% respectively, while Mitsubishi bank tumbled 7%.
"Asian markets have fallen once again, although without quite the same ferocity we saw in yesterday's bloodbath and there is some buying coming back into the equity markets," Chris Weston of IG markets said in a note.

Commodities weigh down Australia
In Australia, the ASX 200 lost 1.2% to close at 4,775.70 points, adding to the 2.8% decline of the previous day.
Shares continued to be weighed down by the dominant energy sector.
Bellwether stocks BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto were down by 2.5% and 1.2% respectively as concerns about lower global commodity prices continued to affect the market.
Banking stocks were equally hard hit, with NAB, ANZ and Westpac all seeing significant falls.

CBA was the only lender with slight gains. Photo: AFP

The only lender of the big four to beat that trend was the Commonwealth Bank, which posted half-year results just before the market opened.
The bank posted a 4% gain in cash profit, although revenues slipped and loan impairment expenses increased.
Shares picked up and rose by 1.8%, a moderate gain given that the bank's shares have dropped more than 15% since the beginning of the year.
Markets in Hong Kong, China and South Korea remained closed for the Lunar New Year holidays.

Star editor sued for defamation

BCL leaders file cases in 2 districts

Star Report

Local leaders of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) in Laxmipur and Khulna yesterday filed two defamation cases against The Daily Star Editor Mahfuz Anam.
In the cases, they demanded compensation of Tk 51 crore for "publishing without verification reports on Sheikh Hasina based on information provided by the DGFI after the 1/11 political changeover".
The cases were filed two days after some ruling Awami League lawmakers and leaders demanded Mahfuz Anam's arrest on sedition charge for publishing the reports in 2007.
Chowdhury Mahmudunnabi Sohel, president of the Laxmipur district BCL, filed a Tk 50-crore defamation suit with the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Farzana Akhter.
After recording Sohel's statement, the judge asked him to submit The Daily Star reports published in 2007, but did not set any specific date for this, the plaintiff's lawyer told our Noakhali correspondent.
The court would make further decisions after receiving necessary documents, he added.
Laxmipur district BCL General Secretary Rakib Hossain Lotus and three other leaders of the unit have been made witnesses in the case.
Talking to reporters, Sohel said that he claimed the compensation because the "DGFI-fed reports" tarnished the image of BCL's organisational chief Sheikh Hasina.
However, Hasina is in no way part of the organisation and it's the BCL president who is the organisational chief of the student body, according to its constitution.
The Awami League has seven associate organisations but the BCL is not among those. The student body was dropped from the list through an AL council in 2009.
The other case was filed by Mushfiqur Rahman Sagar, general secretary of Khulna district BCL. He demanded Taka 1 crore in compensation from Mahfuz Anam.
The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court of Khulna fixed March 3 for next hearing.
The court also ordered the officer-in-charge of Khulna Sadar Police Station to submit on March 1 a report on the charges brought against the accused, Sagar's lawyer Md Shah Alam told our Khulna correspondent.
During a talk-show aired live on a private TV channel on February 3, Mahfuz Anam made an introspective comment about a lapse in his editorial judgement in publishing a few reports that the newspaper could not independently verify during the last caretaker government's tenure.