MEXICO CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rivada Networks has learned that the winning consortium in Mexico's Red Compartida incorporated the required trust for $1 billion pesos (around $53 million dollars) on March 30, 2017. Thus, it failed to meet the deadline of March 8, 2017. There has been no word on whether Altan has likewise met the March 8th deadline for delivering a $5 billion-peso performance bond or the March 15th deadline for paying $15 million USD to the SCT’s financial adviser.
The Mexican government may have granted Altan a 30-business-day extension for Altan to meet these obligations. However, according to the PPP Contract of the Red Compartida Project this extension has to meet certain requirements: (1) Altan had to have made a written request to Promptel explaining the reasons behind the extension request; and (2) Promptel should have evaluated the reasons offered by Altan and made a determination that the extensions meets the criteria.
The authority to grant an extension is at the sole discretion of Promptel. For that reason, it is in the public interest to know the reasons behind the Mexican Government's decision to grant this extension.
Declan Ganley, co-CEO of Rivada, said, "Assuming the government granted these extensions, it did so without any public notice because it knew it would highlight the unfair and illegal treatment of Rivada's bid last November. The Mexican people deserve an explanation for why this extension was in the public interest, while Rivada was disqualified for a mere technicality relating to its delivery of a conforming bid bond in October 2016."
Other questions also remain unanswered: Has Altan changed any of its investors? Has Altan altered its capital structure? Is Altan getting funds from the Chinese Government? Investment by the Chinese Government into Altan would violate the Mexican law against foreign sovereign ownership of telecommunications companies. The people of Mexico deserve clarity on all these questions.
About Rivada Networks
Rivada Networks is a leading designer, integrator and operator of wireless, interoperable communications networks. Rivada’s technology, Dynamic Spectrum Arbitrage-Tiered Priority Access (DSATPA), allows wireless broadband capacity to be dynamically bought and sold in a fully competitive on demand process to competing commercial entities. DSATPA is a game changer for the way in which spectrum is consumed, maximizing the efficiency of radio spectrum bandwidth and unlocking the potential for more extensive, higher capacity broadband networks.
