An ESAT Digifone delegation apparently misled the evaluation team which was adjudicating on the second GSM licence competition in an oral presentation on the company's application, the tribunal heard.
Representatives from Communicorp and Telanor, the two main companies behind the Esat bid, gave repeated assurances to the evaluation team that the necessary financial backing for the bid was in place when, according to tribunal counsel, correspondence suggested the reverse.
Mr John Coughlan SC said that on September 12th, 1995, Mr Denis O'Brien of Communicorp and Esat was aware that Communicorp had no entitlement to £30 million funding from one of its backers, Advent International.
Yet, according to minutes of the presentation, Mr O'Brien told the evaluation team that Advent had already invested £19.5 million since the previous October, and that the remainder of the funding had been "guaranteed" on receipt of the licence.
A Telanor executive, Mr Arve Johannsen, also told the team "We already have the funding in place". He said the consortium had £71 million in equity, including £30 million committed by Communicorp, bringing to £161 million the total amount of funds available to Esat, £37 million above its requirements.
In addition to reassuring the evaluation team about Esat's finances, Mr O'Brien said Esat's share structure would allow it to remain under Irish ownership. "Our goal is that the company will remain Irish," he added.
Some time after the receipt of the licence, Esat Digifone was sold to British Telecom.
