Not in its most tortured nightmares would the State have thought that the Army deafness saga had a twist that could cost an extra £500 million (€635 million), but, as dozens of bulky, besuited telecommunications and cable executives meandered around the High Court yesterday, such a scenario loomed large.
After a brief stop in Court 13, the herd moved down two flights to Court 5 and listened patiently to the army deafness claim that was in progress. There seemed little chance of the deafness claim being adjourned, and that left the case dealing with the sale of Cablelink in legal limbo.
Eventually, with the frantic execs beseeching the judge with their eyes, the court sought agreement from the army deafness case barristers to suspend for long enough to hear an application from Esat to adjourn until Tuesday. But when the judge turned down this adjournment application, everyone was told to get ready for action at 2 p.m.
By now, the sun was beating down, and even the most buttoned-up professionals had the hunted look of people who would rather be anywhere but where they are. Luckily, though, a genuine issue popped up every now and then, just to keep their attention focused.
The questions on which the court has to decide appear relatively simple, and it now has affidavits from Esat, NTL and Rothschild to help the process.
The whole wrangle revolves around whether NM Rothschild, on behalf of Telecom Eireann and RTE, has the right to sell at whatever price it likes, on whatever basis it likes, to whomever it likes, during as many bidding rounds as it decides upon, whether retrospectively or not.
Rothschild - and, of course, NTL - says it does, and claims that it said so on every document it sent to the bidders. Esat claims Rothschild does not have the right to be unfair, and that accepting a non-cash bid from NTL, then revealing Esat's secret bid and ordering another round after calling the previous one "final" is not fair.
Esat believes that its original business acumen was superior, gauging correctly the highest fixed cash offer for Cablelink last Friday, and that it should be rewarded with success in its bid. Rothschild was told from the beginning to get the best price possible. It believes that if someone is willing to offer two State companies up to £525 million - £110 million more than Esat had bid - then it had a duty to find a way to extract that price.
Listening to these sums - even hearing them badly - must have made the army deafness claimants think they had aimed their sights too low.
