Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
A CLAIM by three cable companies that they are entitled to three-quarters of the shares in Logic One Ltd., a St. Andrew cable company which has been granted a licence by the Broadcasting Commission is to be decided by the Supreme Court.
In the meantime, Logic One has obtained orders from the Supreme Court barring the companies Cablemax Ltd., J. T. Cable Network Ltd. and Stony Hill Cable Services Ltd. with which it is engaged in a legal battle from offering for sale cable TV lines and services which were granted to it by the Broadcasting Commission in 1998.
The injunction is to remain in force until the suits have been heard and determined.
Last week Monday, the Court of Appeal turned down an application by the three companies to have Mario Francis, managing director of Logic One restored as a defendant to the suit they have filed against Logic One. The Supreme Court had discharged him as a defendant.
The companies had filed a motion in the Court of Appeal for extension of time within which to file notice and grounds of appeal against the Supreme Court ruling.
Abuse
When the matter came up for hearing, Dennis Goffe, Q.C., and attorney Haydee Gordon, of Myers Fletcher and Gordon who represented Logic One, took a preliminary objection on the basis that, on January 28 this year, the applicants had abandoned and withdrawn applications including the one in which they were seeking to have Mr. Francis restored as a defendant.
Mr. Goffe argued that it was an abuse of the process of the court for them to make another application.
The court upheld the objection on the basis that to grant the extension would be to open the floodgates for applicants to change their minds, withdraw a matter and then seek to restore it.
The court ordered that the motion was withdrawn and dismissed the application to relist the matter. Costs were awarded to Logic One Ltd.
The three cable companies which are represented by attorneys, Marvalyn Taylor-Wright and Janet Taylor, had also filed a summons for an injunction to bar Logic One from selling or dealing with its assets, but Justice Maurice Reckord dismissed the summons last year when he discharged Mr. Francis from being a defendant.
The judge had also turned down the companies application for the judge to appoint an independent manager to run Logic One' s business.
They are contending that they are entitled to three-quarters of the shares in Logic One based on an oral agreement entered into with Logic One in June 1997.
They claim that the oral agreement was to merge their businesses with that of Logic One. The alleged agreement was that they would apply for a cable licence and Logic One would also apply for one and whichever one got the licence, then there would be a merger. The three companies did not get a licence.
No agreement
Logic One has denied that there was any such agreement and is contending in the suit filed that although the three companies did not have a licence, they spliced Logic One's overhead lines with illegal connections thereby diverting cable television service to their customers and passing off their service as that of Logic One's service.
The companies filed suits against Logic One and its managing director, Mario Francis, for breaching the alleged agreement. On November 28 Justice Reckord dismissed the suit brought against Francis.
The injunction granted to Logic One states that the defendants are restrained from trespassing upon or interfering with Logic One' Cable TV lines and services; or selling or offering for sale the cable TV lines and services. They have also been barred from representing themselves as being in association with the plaintiff Logic One Ltd.
Logic One was granted a licence to provide cable service in Grants Pen, Eastwood Park Gardens, Constant Spring Gardens, Red Hills Gardens, Arlene Gardens, Meadowbrook, Meadowbrook Estate, Maverley, Red Hills and Stony Hill.
