Supreme Court: C&W Financials are Public Documents

A team of two lawyers has filed a suit to obtain Caribbean telco Cable & Wireless' (C&W) financial statements, local daily La Prensa reported.

The move comes after Panama's supreme court ruled that financial documents of any company in which the state owns shares, or which provides public services, must be made freely available to the public.

Though much has been made of the matter, Signals Consulting president José Otero pointed out that C&W's financials statements are already a matter of public record, easily available in the UK at the very least.

"For example, in Panama Cable & Wireless reported revenues of 257mn pounds sterling (US$449.3mn) and operating profits of 75mn pounds sterling in 2005," said Otero.

"If this is all the information that they manage to get out of C&W Panama, it will have no effect. If the court decision is wider-reaching, however, and if the company has to provide as much information as operators do in Brazil, then things might get interesting," Otero added.

The Panamanian state owns 49% of C&W Panama and the company's workers own another 2%.

BNamericas.com"

Posted to the site on 13th April 2006