Shareholder lodges complaint with DSI over CTH shutdown
A MINOR shareholder of CTH yesterday filed a complaint with the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) for the company to be investigated in the wake of a June ruling by the Central Bankruptcy Court that rejected a rehabilitation plan for the cable TV operator and ordered it to enter bankruptcy.
Sumet Sonsut, a lawyer representing the minor shareholder, said that, with the complaint to the DSI, it wants an investigation into the company’s conduct. The complaint cited the effect of the company’s bankruptcy on the minor shareholders and also on CTH’s business relationships, including with members of the Thailand Cable TV Association (TCTA) and scores of equipment installation companies. In all, about 100 companies have been affected across the country.
According to the filing with the DSI, the financial damage incurred by the minor shareholders and TCTA members is Bt1.9 billion. Combined, more than 100 people nationwide have been affected by CTH’s business shutdown, the filing said.
TCTA president Viriya Thamruengthong said that the association’s members face even more losses as a result of issues following the shutdown of TCH’s operations. They need to make arrangements with CTH on matters such as their inventories and money guarantees since the operations ended.
“We need the DSI to investigate CTH Plc over its corporate governance and the way it has done business, related to when Central Bankruptcy Court issued a statement on June 22, 2017, that CTH Plc be declared a bankrupt firm,” Viriya said.
The DSI’s director of the bureau of case management, Police Major Worranan Srilum, said yesterday that the department would consider the filed complaint within 10 days, before sending it on to the DSI’s director-general to decide whether to proceed with an investigation.
“If the DSI’s director-general issues an order to accept this case for an investigate by the DSI, we will take a maximum of six months to investigate, before deciding whether to take any action,” he |said.
“We cannot say at this time whether the DSI has accepted this case for investigation. [Yesterday] only marks that we have accepted this case for registration of a complaint and that will be followed by a study into the case.”
CTH Plc shut down its cable TV operations on August 1, 2016. The company made a filing with the Central Bankruptcy Court on October 20, 2016, for a business rehabilitation. In that filing, it said it total debts of Bt21.45 billion, which exceeded its total assets of Bt9.9 billion.
In the rehabilitation plan, the company had proposed that it enter the energy sector with a biomass venture for electricity production. But on June 22 this year, the Central Bankruptcy Court issued a statement rejecting its rehabilitation plan and ordered the company to enter bankruptcy.
CTH Plc was established on October 8, 2009, with registered capital of Bt3 billion, by major shareholders Yingluck Watcharapol and Wichai Thongtang, who each hold 25 per cent, with the rest held by minor shareholders.
