Solar Team Entertainment Inc. (STEI), a distributor of films and TV entertainment shows, has urged the Supreme Court to immediately resolve its petition seeking for a reversal of the 2007 decision of the Court of Appeals and instead compel its former marketing agent to pay more than P224 million in unaccounted and unremitted airtime collections and advertising sales.
STEI, headed by William Tieng, urged the SC to nullify the decision of the CA which upheld a ruling of a Makati City Regional Trial Court (RTC) that it violated the terms of its 2003 compromise agreement with its marketing agent Team Image Entertainment Inc. (TIE) when it failed to “provisionally dismiss” its complaint-in-intervention in a case filed by the Associated Broadcasting Co. against TIE and its president Felix S. Co.
In a petition filed with the Supreme Court, Tieng said the CA’s ruling has effectively induced STEI “to do something which is inexistent and unwarranted by the Rules of Court” since provisional dismissal applies only to criminal cases.
The dispute between STEI and TIE started when the marketing firm refused to account for the revenues it generated from the sales of STEI’s theatrical materials, despite repeated demands from STEI.
STIE was designated as the sole marketing agent of STEI since April 24, 1996.
Under the agreement between the two, TIE would be its sole and exclusive agent to market advertising spots and block times in movie telenovelas, television series, programs and airing specials to advertising agencies, commercial and business establishments and enterprises who may wish to advertise their products or business on televisions.
STEI claimed that based on the television log of RPN-9 alone, TIE had unaccounted sales and unremitted collections of more than P224.7 million.
STEI said they were forced to revoke TIE’s marketing agreement with them on June 25, 1997 due to the alleged continued refusal of Co’s group to remit sales collections and outright denial to have STEI auditors to look at their financial records.
Worse of all, they alleged, Co even claimed to some clients that the STEI films and telenovelas he was marketing were his own properties.
STEI said that this series of misdemeanors prompted them to file a complaint for accounting and damages against Co before the Makati City RTC, Branch 59, under Presiding Judge Winlove Dumayas in Sept. 13, 2000.
The Makati RTC, on Jan. 17, 2002, ordered TIE to make an accounting of its sales and collections since April 24, 1996 and pay P50,000 in attorney’s fees and P200,000 in damages.
STEI and TIE then entered into a compromise agreement that was approved by Makati City RTC Judge Winlove Dumayas on April 30, 2003 in order to end the controversy.
TIE and Co issued postdated checks in favor of STEI.
However, the agreement did not stop the legal dispute between STEI and TIE, when Co’s firm accused Tieng of violating the compromise agreement.
On Nov. 3, 2005, Judge Dumayas issued a resolution granting TIE and Co’s motion for writ of execution, allowing the suspension of payments by Co, and directing Tieng to move for the provisional dismissal of STEI’s intervention in the civil case pending before the trial court.
When the Makati City judge dismissed STEI’s motion for reconsideration, it elevated the case before the CA which upheld the ruling of the trial court in a decision issued on Dec. 12, 2007.