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THE
Supreme Court (SC) will give due course to the
P224-million collection suit filed by Solar Team
Entertainment Inc. (STEI), a known distributor of films
and television entertainment shows in the country,
against its former marketing agent Felix Co.
The SC’s
Third Division will tackle the case today (Monday) after
it has acquired jurisdiction to hear the petition for
review filed by STEI, led by its president William Tieng,
seeking a reversal of the decision of the Court of
Appeals (CA), and instead compel a marketing firm, Team
Image Entertainment Inc. (TIE), to pay more than P224
million in unaccounted and unremitted airtime
collections and advertising sales from April 24, 1996 up
to September 2000.
In its
petition, STEI sought to nullify and set aside the
decision of the appellate court, which upheld a ruling
of a Regional Trial Court in Makati that it violated the
terms of its 2003 compromise agreement with TIE when it
failed to “provisionally dismiss” its
complaint-in-intervention in a case filed by the
Associated Broadcasting Co. against TIE and its
president Felix Co.
In
seeking a reversal of the appellate court’s ruling,
Tieng lamented that the CA’s questionable ruling has
effectively induced STEI “to do something which is
inexistent and unwarranted by the Rules of Court” since
provisional dismissal applies only to criminal cases.
“There
is nothing in the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure that
would authorize a provisional dismissal in civil
cases....Having to provisionally dismiss a civil case
is, however, a legal impossibility and for petitioner to
do so would impliedly undermine the rule making power of
the Honorable Supreme Court on matters of pleadings,
practice and procedures,” the STEI executive stressed.
The
legal controversy between STEI and TIE started when the
latter refused to account the revenues it generated from
the sales of STEI’s theatrical materials, despite
repeated demand from Tieng’s STEI.
TIE was
designated as marketing agent of STEI on April 24, 1996.
Under the agreement, TIE would be its sole and exclusive
agent to market advertising spots and block times in
movie telenovelas, television series, programs and
airing specials to advertising agencies, commercial and
business establishments and enterprises who may wish to
advertise their products or business on televisions.
STEI
complained that based on the television log of RPN-9
alone, TIE had unaccounted sales and unremitted
collections of more than P224.7 million.
The
Tieng’s camp said they were forced to revoke TIE’s
marketing agreement with them due to the continued
refusal of Co’s group to remit sales collections and
outright denial to have STEI auditors to look at their
financial and account books.
Worst of
all, Co even claimed to some clients that the STIE films
and telenovelas he was marketing were his own
properties.
STEI
said that this series of misdemeanors prompted them to
file a complaint for accounting and damages against Co
before the Makati City Regional Trial Court, Branch 59,
under Presiding Judge Winlove M. Dumayas in Sept. 13,
2000.
On Jan.
17, 2002, the trial court ordered TIE to make an
accounting of its sales and collections since April 24,
1996 and pay P50,000 in attorney’s fees and P200,000 in
damages.
In an
attempt to resolve the dispute, STEI and TIE entered
into a compromise agreement that was approved by RTC
Judge Dumayas on April 30, 2003. TIE and Co issued
postdated checks in favor of STEI.
However,
the agreement did not stop the legal dispute between
STEI and TIE, when Co’s camp accused Tieng of violating
the compromise agreement.
On
November 3, 2005, Dumayas issued a resolution granting
TIE and Co’s motion for writ of execution, allowing
suspension of payments by Co, and directing Tieng to
move for the provisional dismissal of STEI’s
intervention in the civil case pending before the trial
court.
When the
Makati City judge dismissed STEI’s motion for
reconsideration, it elevated the case before the CA,
which upheld the ruling of the trial court in a decision
issued on Dec. 12, 2007.
After
the July 24, 2008 CA denial of its motion for
reconsideration, STEI filed a petition with the SC.
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