The company contracted to provide TV coverage of the Commonwealth Games in 2010 that were broadcast across the world is still locked in a protracted battle over payment for its services four years after the Delhi event.
The British-based satellite and broadcast organisation SIS Live claims it is owed £29m for delivering coverage of the event in India, citing unpaid charges, costs, liquidated damages and interest following an entrenched legal dispute.
SIS Live agreed a contract with Prasar Bharati, India’s largest public broadcaster, in 2009 but both parties are some way off reaching an agreement to settle the payment. SIS Live, which at the time employed almost 1,000 people, secured the contract on the strength of the BBC outside broadcast team it had acquired in 2008. Until its contract expired in March this year SIS Live had provided much of the BBC’s sports coverage, including the outside-broadcast feed of the Delhi Games.
Amid serious allegations of corruption, a number of the 32 contractors who provided work in Delhi have yet to be paid for their services. In 2011 the UK high commission in Delhi wrote to the Indian government to express concern at the lack of progress regarding payment to contractors, signed jointly by the embassies of seven European countries and Australia.
“It’s astonishing to come into the next Commonwealth Games to have contractors that have not been paid for the last one,” said Kevin Smith, a lawyer for SIS. “It’s institutional gridlock. We hope with a change of government now that the climate might be more amenable to a settlement being negotiated.
“If anybody had suggested to me when we signed the contract that four years on the issue would still be ongoing, I really wouldn’t have believed them. In my experience this is totally unprecedented. This is the same outside-broadcast team who won media awards for the delivery of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester [in 2002]. The non-payment has harmed everybody associated with it. No one comes out of this with any glory.”
A spokesman for Jawhar Sircar, the chief executive of Prasar Bharati, said: “The matter is sub-judice therefore we would not to comment on the issue.”
The Delhi Games were riddled with controversy, running significantly over budget despite many venues not being fully built. There was a widespread outbreak of illness and reports of contamination in the swimming pool, while accommodation facilities were often left incomplete.
A report commissioned by the Indian government made a number of accusations against SIS Live regarding financial wrongdoing, triggering a criminal investigation by the country’s central bureau of investigation in 2011. After more than a year it found that SIS had no case to answer, but the company’s battle for payment is still ongoing.
The issue has been raised in the UK parliament on more than one occasion with Gerry Sutcliffe, the minister for sport when Delhi was awarded the Games, instigating a debate in September 2013. He said: “It has also been a joy, over the past decade or two, to see India increasingly taking its place at the high tables of the world … for SIS, however, the situation has been even more damaging than the failure to collect a commercial debt because the reputation of the company has been seriously and unfairly attacked, possibly resulting in a loss of future earnings and threatening the very viability of the company.
“I am involved in the issue because I believe that the company has been unfairly treated. We have tried to push the interests of British companies in the world of sport in relation to the next Olympics in Rio in 2016.”
Boria Majumdar, a sports historian and analyst of the Delhi legacy, claims the 2010 Games were a missed opportunity to build lasting foundations for sport in the country, with the International Olympic Committee suspending India for electing officials accused of corruption in 2012. He said: “No major sporting event has been held in the main stadium and [nor is one] planned to be held there, it’s a white elephant. Indian sport has not taken a giant leap forward and it’s a negative legacy.
“There were some positives in terms of the roads and the Delhi metro, but not many. There are no high-standard sporting programmes for schools, colleges or universities. People want to turn things around but it’s an unfortunate situation.”