In a longstanding dispute over termination of its media telecast rights contract by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) in 2007, Zee Entertainment Enterprises (ZEE) has got favourable ruling from the arbitration tribunal.

The three-member tribunal has asked BCCI to pay about Rs 140 crore to ZEE by December 1, failing which the amount would carry interest at 11 per cent annually till payment, a ZEE statement said.

The tribunal consisting of two former Chief Justices of India Justice A.S. Anand (Retd.) and Justice Y.K. Sabharwal (Retd.), and Former Judge, Supreme Court of India, Justice B.N. Srikrishna (Retd.), held the BCCI guilty of exploiting its dominant position in respect of the game. The tribunal also held that ZEE was treated unfairly in its commercial contracts, due to the launch of the Indian Cricket League.

BCCI had given exclusive media rights to ZEE to telecast all one-day internationals to be held between India and any other country in any neutral territory outside India for a period of five years in April 2006. But BCCI had terminated this agreement in May 2007. This had led the broadcasting company to go in for arbitration.

Punit Goenka, Managing Director and CEO, ZEE, said in a statement, “This award is towards recovery of the losses that we have incurred in the sports business in the past. We continue to remain committed to our sports business in the long-term.”

“It appears from the material on the record that the BCCI took the action of termination of claimants rights under Agreement dated April 12, 2006 on account of Claimant launching of ICL and not for reasons made out in its letter of termination,” the tribunal said.

“To us it seems that BCCI was exploiting its dominating position in respect of game of cricket in India,” the tribunal said, adding that the BCCI blacklisting of ZEE (and its group/affiliate companies) from participating in any bidding process of BCCI was “clearly illegal”.

> Meenakshi.v@thehindu.co.in

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