Colombia. In judgments issued, when resolving in second instance two lawsuits filed by DirecTV against the then National Television Commission (today ANTV), the highest administrative litigation body not only denied the claimant's claims but also condemned her to pay the readjustment of the settlements made by the governing body.
The facts originated between 2002 and 2005 respectively before the refusal of the companies Sky Colombia S.A and Galaxy de Colombia S.A today DirecTV, to accept the liquidation made by the CNTV for the concept of the readjustment in the self-assessments presented by the concessionaire which did not conform to reality.
From audits carried out by the National Television Commission itself, it was evident that the companies did not settle the compensation on 100% of the total gross income received, as provided for in Clause 3 of the contracts in force at the time of the facts, but on 60% of the value paid by the subscribers depending on the contracted plan.
That is, the companies paid the CNTV only for the concept "subscription" that each subscriber pays monthly and did not include the lease of other equipment such as set-top boxes, which the user also pays month by month to receive the satellite TV service.
In view of the foregoing, the CNTV, by resolutions 955 of 2002 and 1248 of 2003, ordered the operator to pay a higher value including the current capital, capital in arrears and interest, for the readjustment in the self-assessments presented by the concessionaires, administrative acts that were demanded by Sky Colombia S.A., alleging that the compensation should be calculated only on the values paid by users for the contracted programming packages and not on the total value invoiced, an argument that was refuted by the CNTV.
When deciding the second instance, the Council of State agreed with the CNTV and did not accept the reasons given by Sky Colombia S.A., since it was demonstrated that for a satellite television signal to be received by the users of said service, it is an indispensable requirement that each of them has in their residence the three electronic equipment -mini-antenna, parabolic, with the LNB and with the signal decoder-, which shows that the monthly value charged by SKY to its users, for the rental of equipment especially the decoder, is an integral part of the service of reception of direct television signals by satellite.
As a result of the above, the Council of State recognized in favor of the National Television Authority, ANTV, more than $ 13,000 million for the readjustment of the self-assessments made by DirecTV.
