Island Council should grant
Scarlet licence, Court rules
PHILIPSBURG--The Court of First Instance has annulled the decision of the Island Council to reject the request of Curaçao-based telecommunications company Scarlet for a permit to offer international telecommunication services in St. Maarten.
The Executive Council had turned down Scarlet’s request on July 6, 2006. An appeal launched against this decision with the Island Council was declared inadmissible by the council on March 6, 2007, after which Scarlet filed an administrative appeal in the Court of First Instance.
The ruling of the Judge in the Court of First Instance, made public on November 18, 2008, constitutes an important breakthrough for telecommunication companies that, under their own concessions, want to offer international telecommunication services in St. Maarten.
Existing companies in St. Maarten, such as TelEm, TelCell, Smitcoms, East Caribbean Cellular, and Antelecom will be obligated to cooperate and make their infrastructure on the island available for this purpose, Judge Joop Drop ruled.
This also means that the moratorium on the admittance of new telecommunication companies to St. Maarten, put in place by the Island Government in October 2002, has come to an end.
Curaçao-based Scarlet, which is already active in St. Maarten as a provider of Internet services, will now be able to extend its activities in the field of international telephone services to the other islands of the Netherlands Antilles.
Scarlet had requested a licence “to provide prepaid and post-paid international, inter-insular, and intra-insular direct dial services, wire and wireless Internet and data services, private lease circuits and virtual private networks.”
Scarlet, which was represented in the so-called LAR administrative procedure by attorney-at-law Douwe Boersema of Spigthoff Lawyers in Curaçao and Bert Hofman of Bermon Law Office in St. Maarten, had contested the authority of local authorities in St. Maarten to ban new telecommunication companies on the island by refusing to give them a business licence.
The Island Council was represented in this case by attorney-at-law Richard Gibson Jr.
Based on the current division of powers between the Central Government and the Island Territories, the judge came to the same conclusion. According to the Islands Regulation of the Netherlands Antilles ERNA, all competence in the area of telecommunication still lies with the Central Government. A decision made by the Council of Ministers cannot be frustrated by the Island Territories refusing licences based on their local considerations, the Court ruled.
