Thursday, June 14, 2007 Telecom firm sued over P14M electronic load
A CEBU-based distribution company filed a multi-million-peso estafa suit against Smart Communications Inc.
Salvador Gonzales and Ronaldo Chua of Integrated Distribution Network Inc. (IDNI) accused Smart, through its president and chief executive officer Napoleon Nazareno, of illegally deactivating their network of electronic load (e-load) dealer subscriber information modules (SIMs) and capturing almost P14 million worth of electronic load inside.
But Smart, for its part, said the allegations are “baseless.”
Gonzales and Chua said that the capturing of the electronic loads, which resulted from the deactivation of the dealer SIMs, constituted estafa because the electronic loads lost were already bought and paid for.
“In our industry, the transaction is always pay-before-delivery of e-loads. In other words, Smart Communications would never release the e-loads if they are not fully paid first,” said Gonzales and Chua.
They narrated that in early February, Smart sold P379 million worth of e-load to their company.
The deal, they said, was part of a compromise agreement aimed to settle the P14 million responsibility of Smart to IDNI over a separate transaction.
Later, the two realized that their sub-dealers were not able to transact business because Smart allegedly deactivated that particular function, “for reasons known only to Smart.”
The complainants disclosed that a series of meetings took place between them and the telecommunications firm representative, where they were told that sub-dealer-to-sub-dealer transactions were indeed allowed.
The representative allegedly promised them that they will look into why that function that will allow the electronic transaction was blocked.
But later, they received an e-mail from Tining Jimenez of Smart indicating that the sub-dealer-to-sub-dealer function in IDNI’s case will remain blocked because Smart’s P379-million e-load sales to IDNI was not a normal transaction but a result of a compromise agreement.
“If anything, Smart is the aggrieved party in this case. The company has acted in accordance with all the agreements that were struck. It is the other side who has acted in bad faith,” said Ramon Isberto, head of the public affairs group of Smart.
The company said it reserved further comment until a copy of the formal complaint reaches them. (KNT)
