AIS lawsuit threat spooks half of TOT's board into quitting

Bangkok Post | February 24, 2011 | Komsan Tortermvasana
Nearly half of the board members of TOT Plc have tendered their resignations over the past two days for fear of a possible legal backlash over the state enterprise’s move to demand compensation from mobile market leader Advanced Info Service.
Five of the 12 board members decided to quit because they were unhappy with the board’s decision to submit the AIS compensation case for approval at a meeting tomorrow, TOT sources said.
TOT is under pressure from the government to pursue massive compensation from AIS over a series of amendments to its concession.
The amendments, made on separate occasions to reduce AIS’s revenue sharing for its pre-paid mobile phone service, caused TOT to lose some 74 billion baht in income from the operator, according to the government.
A TOT board member said yesterday the directors who quit were concerned that they would be subject to legal action from AIS if the private concessionaire fought back against the state telecom enterprise’s compensation demand.
Three of the five board members submitted their resignations on Tuesday: Wanchati Santikoonchorn, Wanee Touchsanamomtien and Nutchanart Pantawangkoon. The two others who submitted their resignation letters yesterday were Djitt Laowattana and Verathai Suntipraphop.
Dr Djitt admitted he had decided to resign from the board as he no longer wanted the job. He declined to elaborate and refused to say whether any more members would resign.
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