GUYANA Telephone and Telegraph Company Limited (GT&T) has appealed the recent High Court decision which ruled against its monopoly in the telecommunication sector.
The ruling which it is appealing resulted from an action that was launched against it by Georgetown businessman James G. Samuels, through Attorney-at-Law, Mr.Parmanand Mohanlall. In the grounds of appeal, GT&T is alleging that the judge erred in law by, among other things:
* finding that the licence granting an exclusive right or monopoly to the appellant to provide telecommunications service or control voice and data  transmission on the Internet was unlawful, in that it was not relevant to the issues before the Court;
* deciding the claim or other issues raised in the pleading based on a misapplication of what the Court of Appeal held in Vieira Communications Limited (VCT) versus the Attorney General and another;
* being uniformed by the substantial and decisive differences of law, fact and circumstance between that case and the present one;
* including the specific statutory provisions in the Telecommunications Act 1990;
* misunderstanding and misapplying the principle of perambulatory construction of a statute to accommodate technological change and
* failing to take into account properly or at all the wording of the licence granted the GT&T in 1990, with respect of their description of the systems and services to which their provisions apply.

Unfortunate absence
GT&T also complained that the judge, whilst regretting what he said was an unfortunate absence of written decisions from the courts of the United Kingdom or elsewhere, dealing, specifically with Internet-based  telephony, treated with scant respect a decision of the Jamaican Court of Appeal over a voice transmission service and seriously erred in rejecting the ratio of that Court in the case.
GT&T declared that the judge’s decision in its case is unconscionable and cannot be supported, having regard  to the evidence in that in finding that GT&T wrongfully terminated the service contract of the respondent, he failed to take into account at all or properly the statements and admissions by Samuels in his pleadings,
affidavits and/or evidence in the two actions filed by him against the utility.
Representing GT&T are Senior Counsel Rex Mc Kay and Miles Fitzpatrick and Attorney-at-Law Mr. Timothy Jonas.