Ever since the launching of a hostile campaign against it, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International Sal (LBCI) and its Chairman had hoped to avoid getting into a public argument with LMH, its parent company, Rotana Holding and its shareholders. However, the incorrect and defamatory statements made by LMH against LBCI and its Chairman and General Manager Sheikh Pierre El Daher leave us no option but to correct these falsehoods.          

LBCI would like to draw attention to the fact that responsibility for the actions taken by LMH and PAC vis a vis PAC’s employees, and which came after a series of failures by LMH and PAC in meeting their financial and other obligations to their suppliers and LBCI lays solely with them. Rotana’s subsidiary LMH has had for the last three and a half years a long history of delayed or missed payments and nonperformance with its counterparts and Rotana has further caused LMH to start missing on its payments and to deliberately take wrong commercial decisions.          

This position, along with other suspicious decisions taken by Rotana, owner of LMH, PAC and LBC SAT, has caused LMH to fail, over the last three years, to fully pay its dues to PAC while LBCI was making timely payment of its dues to LMH and PAC and accordingly, Rotana and LMH are solely responsible for PAC’s precarious financial situation.        

It is only in the last month of 2011 when LBCI had legitimate concerns over (i) LMH’s and PAC’s willingness and ability to honor their obligations to LBCI following several substantiated failures and (ii) LMH’s and PAC’s intention to prematurely terminate the agreement with LBCI before its expiration in December 2012, that LBCI conditioned future payments on the receipt of assurances from PAC and LMH that they will meet their commitments to LBCI. These assurances were never received. Instead, LMH and PAC elected to unilaterally terminate their agreement with LBCI without legal basis and in violation of its terms.    

LMH and PAC have terminated their agreement with LBCI and are now raising false claims to substantiate the decision to shut down PAC. LMH and PAC should take full responsibility for their wrongful actions against PAC’s employees and should not try to evade their duties by seeking to blame other parties who have an impeccable track record in dealing with their own employees. It remains that compliance by LMH and Rotana with their payment obligations to PAC in addition to the capital increase and allocation to support the business of PAC would have enabled PAC to honor all its commitments to LBCI and to the suppliers and employees of PAC and would have avoided the dismissal of the employees on false economic grounds.            

Based on the above, and for other considerations which we momentarily reserve, we would like to note that:          

1)        Following LMH's unlawful termination of its agreement with LBCI, LBCI is a creditor and not a debtor to LMH and PAC, and the amounts due by the LMH and PAC to LBCI exceed by far the amounts claimed by LMH.         

2)        When Rotana subscribed to the capital increase of LMH and PAC, its directors then stressed that the core value of PAC resided in its employees and technicians because of their high credentials and expertise, which prompted Rotana at the time to implement such capital increase.      

3)        During the past three and a half years, it became evident to LBCI that Rotana was pursuing a systematic policy aiming at undermining the Lebanese media and audiovisual sector which had established itself as a fierce competitor in the region and a landmark when it came to distinguished TV production, a success to which PAC contributed.      

4)      It is also clear to LBCI that one of the main purposes of liquidating PAC, despite the substantial financial capabilities of Rotana, is an attempt, which is doomed to fail, to weaken LBCI and force it to shut down or to surrender. It is not surprising that this campaign was run in parallel with the Lebanese Forces’ lawsuit against LBCI, its Chairman and General Manager and some of its shareholders.       

5)       This raises questions as to how and why three leading companies in their fields and widely acclaimed by Arab audience such as LMH, PAC, and LBCSAT have deteriorated ever since Rotana Group took over their management.         

6)       Last but not least, we would like to assure our audience, Lebanese and Arab, in Lebanon and abroad, that these attempts to undermine LBCI are doomed to failure. Building on our human, technical, financial, and other resources and on our resilience to overcome the difficulties that have faced us over the years, we assure you that, this too, shall pass.