An appeals court in Macau has confirmed the judgement that the Macau SAR government should pay compensation of $200 million Ptcs. (US$ 25.6 million) to Macau Cable TV, because the government failed to enforce its own laws against pay-TV piracy during Macau Cable TV’s exclusive contract period (1999 to 2014). For years during that time, CATV suppliers called “antenna companies” supplied the lion’s share of Macau’s consumers with program bouquets including pirated international pay-TV broadcasts, and repeated complaints to the government produced no enforcement action. Macau Cable sued the government for arbitration under its franchise contract, and won an initial award in 2012 that was reaffirmed by the recent appeals court ruling.
That system has now ended; in 2014, Macau’s authorities restructured the TV economy and created a government-owned TV distribution company that provides a bouquet of 49 free-to-air channels to the “antenna companies” for redistribution.)
(Declaration of interest: CASBAA supported Macau Cable TV in its complaint, and testified before the initial Arbitration Court hearing about the prevalence (at that time) of pay-TV piracy in Macau. )
The news was uncovered by Portuguese-language news publisher Ponto Final. An English-language news story on this can be downloaded here: