Reliance Communications moves TDSAT against DoT demand

Reliance Communications (RCom) has moved the telecom tribunal against the telecom department’s demand for spectrum usage charges (SUC) of about Rs 3,000 crore, a move which could be the start of a lengthy legal battle that could further delay the company’s spectrum sale to Reliance Jio Infocomm and repayment to lenders.

“RCom has moved TDSAT (Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal) against our demand for spectrum usage charges. The hearing is sometime in September, we will respond to RCom’s petition,” said a senior official at the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), asking not to be named.

“Till matter is resolved, there will not be any spectrum trading deal,” the official said, adding that DoT will exhaust all legal options to recover its dues, before which it won’t clear any spectrum deal between the two operators.

RCom did not respond to ET’s queries on the latest DoT demand. Shares in RCom closed down 1.98% at Rs 18.33 on the BSE on Tuesday.

DoT had written to RCom last week, asking it to furnish around Rs 3,000 crore as spectrum usage charges (SUC) or give bank guarantees of the same sum. Historically, telcos have stymied DoT’s efforts to recover annual dues such as SUC and license fees, saying the definition of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) was in court. Annual fees such as SUC and license fees are charged on the basis of a telco’s AGR, which is the revenue derived from licensed services.

The ministry’s hardline stance puts yet another spanner in RCom’s asset monetisation plans through which the company intends to pare its debt of Rs 46,000 crore by repaying its 39 lenders. Key to that asset monetisation plan is the sale of wireless assets, including spectrum and towers, and land to Jio and Canadian asset management firm Brookfield, respectively, for about Rs 18,000 crore.

RCom has been mandated by the company law tribunal to also pay Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson .`550 crore by September 30 to settle its dispute over dues, failing which any sale to Jio will be nullified and the company will be dragged back into insolvency proceedings. RCom also needs to pay Rs 232 crore to minority shareholders of its tower arm Reliance Infratel under a separate settlement of a dispute.

The Anil Ambani-owned telco though has completed the first two tranches of its asset sale deal with Jio, which were sale of its optic fibre and related assets for Rs 3,000 crore and media convergence nodes (MCNs) and related infrastructure for Rs 2,000 crore. RCom wireless assets that will eventually go to Jio include 122.4 units of 4G airwaves across the 850, 900, 1800 and 2100 MHz bands and over 43,000 towers.

This though is not the first instance of DoT threatening RCom’s spectrum sale to Jio. The carrier recently hurriedly restored bank guarantees, aggregating Rs 774 crore, to DoT so that the government did not cancel its mobile permits and spectrum, which could have potentially scuttled the Jio deal.

RCom though had fulfilled a key part of its debt resolution prices last week by convincing its overseas bond holders to take a haircut. The debt-laden company said it will repay holders of $300 million bonds through a combination of cash and bonds of its overseas firm, as part of revised terms approved by those bond holders.

The approved offer involved the bondholders receiving cash proceeds of up to $118 million, and $55 million bonds to be issued by Global Cloud Xchange Ltd, a foreign subsidiary of RCom.