The Civil Court has ordered state-owned Public Service Media (PSM) to pay €39,000 in unpaid fees for the software development commissioned as part of their presidential election coverage in 2018.
PSM had in 2018 signed an agreement with the company Wisdom Tele Vision – Sistemas Informáticos para Televisão to procure the software needed to broadcast the results of the presidential elections.
The agreement detailed that PSM would pay a total of €72,500 for the software, with half of the payment to be issued before the software was shared with PSM, and the other half to be issued after. Per this agreement, PSM had made an advance payment of €36,250 to the company.
The presidential election results were broadcasted on PSM that year using the software procured from the company, but PSM later refused to issue the rest of the payment. PSM's legal representative revealed to the court that they were refusing to pay the money as the company, Wisdom Tele Vision – Sistemas Informáticos para Televisão, had fraudulently leased the software to PSM.
PSM stated that during the negotiations for their agreement, the company had informed them that this was the minimum price to pay for such software. However, PSM alleged that the price they had quoted was much higher than the market minimum, and that they had signed the agreement based on false information provided by the software company.
The Civil Court ruled that PSM had not submitted any evidence to prove the fraud with regards to the case, following which PSM submitted a screenshot to court as proof that the software was available for purchase on another company's website at a price lower than what was quoted by Wisdom Tele Vision – Sistemas Informáticos para Televisão.
The Civil Court's judgement stated that PSM had gotten the opportunity to clarify matters before signing the agreement, and that it was their lapse that they had failed to do so beforehand.
The judgement further read that there was no dispute as to whether the money claimed by the company from PSM in this lawsuit was money that the two parties had agreed upon and signed off on in their agreement. In light of this, the Civil Court has ordered PSM to pay the remaining amount from the agreed price to the company, with an additional €3,500 to cover the cost of their employees' stay in the Maldives. Under the ruling, PSM is now required to pay a total of €39,750 to Wisdom Tele Vision – Sistemas Informáticos para Televisão by 14 May 2024.
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