Yesterday, it was revealed Telstra lost in its attempt to drag Coonan through court, in a desperate attempt to gain access to OPEL’s bidding documents (and therefore straegic business documents).
I think that Telstra might have lost more than it thought it would in setting this case up.
They first lost what would seem to be the ultimate goal of the case, getting access to the technologies, areas, pricing of the OPEL network, and use that strategically to compete with OPEL.
They second lost the costs of employing the legal team and working on a case that was going to go nowhere fast (just as fast as the legal system operates, that increases costs).
The third loss was the loss of fees paid for dragging Coonan through court, and all her legal costs associated to that.
The fourth loss was reputation, Telstra negatively affected its reputation, by again holding back regional broadband access, directly, by placing uncertainty around the OPEL network decision.
The fifth loss was being exposed for the pigs they are. They deliberately took this to court, they deliberately lodged a non complying bid in an effort to push this case through so that they were to become the winners. If anyone else won, they’d challenge it. If Telstra’s bid won, they’d have a heap of government dollars to put towards the equipment they already have out there. This is a loss in the reflection against its reputation.
The sixth loss is the precedence loss.
Telstra’s court case would almost certainly be used in any further action Telstra chooses to take, with references likely to refer back to the case, and be used as reference to Telstra abusing the legal system.
Further court cases by Telstra could see direct references to statements by the Judge, such as one which shows they did indeed intend to take legal action, so long as they won’t get laughed out of court.
Further, they chose the court action to fuel their anti-Singapore racism campaign.
They don’t seem to have considered that aspect just yet, but I think it will soon come to bite them on the arse.
Telstra are hypocrites, just look at the New Zealand regulation case as a clear example.
They might not know it, but they could also be setting themselves up indirectly to take the wrong forms of action.
Shareholders really should indeed try and demand that the situations here be more controlled.
The boy who cried wolf, well no one believed him when the wolf came.
Keeping up with such actions and such abuse of the legal system and such media actions could see Telstra themselves get ignored.
That’d be a good sight to see.
Enjoy!