US COURT ASKS ISRO’S ANTRIX TO PAY $1.2 BILLION TO BENGALURU FIRM

A US court has asked Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of ISRO, to pay compensation of $1.2 billion to a Bengaluru-based startup, Devas Multimedia, for cancelling a satellite deal in 2005.

As per the agreement in January 2005, Antrix agreed to build, launch and operate two satellites and to make available 70 MHz of S-band spectrum to Devas, which the latter planned to use to offer hybrid satellite and terrestrial communication services throughout India. The agreement, however, was terminated by Antrix in February 2011. Over the next several years, Devas approached various legal avenues in India. This included the Supreme Court, which directed for a tribunal.

In his order dated 27 October, Judge Thomas S. Zilly, US District Judge, Western District of Washington, Seattle, ruled that Antrix Corporation pay a compensation of $562.5 million to Devas Multimedia Corporation and the related interest rate amounting to a total of $1.2 billion.

In its lawsuit filed in the US District Court, Devas Multimedia said three separate international tribunals and nine different arbitrators have found the termination of the Devas-Antrix agreement to have been wrongful, with one of the tribunals describing it as conduct “‘which shocks, or at least surprises, a sense of juridical propriety”, and another finding it to be “a clear breach of simple good faith” by India.

Antrix and Spaceflight Industries, that are headquartered in Seattle, have an agreement to provide satellite launch services using India’s PSLV rocket. Antrix and RBC Signals LLC, which is headquartered in Redmond, Washington have a worldwide agreement to provide space communications services to satellite operators.