India loses Antrix- Devas case

TIL Desk/National/New Delhi-India has lost the arbitration case between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Devas in the international tribunal and may face up to $1 billion in damages.

ISRO’s commercial arm Antrix had cancelled a deal involving use of two satellites and a spectrum after which Devas Multimedia filed the case against the former.

According to the deal, signed when G Madhavan Nair was at the helm of affairs in the Department of Space, Antrix was to provide 70 MHz of the scarce S-Band space segment to Devas for its digital multimedia services.

This was to be done by leasing 90% of the transponders in satellites GSAT-6 and GSAT-6A that are proposed to be launched by ISRO. Devas, in turn, was to pay Antrix a total of $300 million over 12 years.