By Colin Wilson

In an interview iNews Cayman had on Monday (7) with Miguel Oliva, Vice President for Public Relations and Corporate Affairs at HBO Latin America, the HBO chief was blunt and gave this message to Cayman’s leading and oldest television cable provider:

“Stop broadcasting our channels, please!”

He said if they do not want to do business with us [HBO]” that’s there prerogative”.

WestStar have no contract with HBO to rebroadcast HBO programming in the Cayman Islands, Oliva said. They are charging their customers for a product they do not pay for, have no contract or licence to do so, and no permission from us.

“HBO will pursue WestStar for its ongoing intellectual property rights violations by all means available and through any appropriate regulatory body in the Cayman Islands, the U.S. and Great Britain,” he said.

When asked why HBO were not pursuing the illegal subscriptions with DISH and similar satellite providers here in the Cayman Islands he said it was up to DISH to do this.

Oliva did not see the comparison between what WestStar was doing and what the local companies selling DISH subscriptions were doing. Even when we pointed out all the condominiums that were selling HBO programming to their condominium owners was exactly the same as what WestStar was doing he was not interested.

He did not like our comment that maybe WestStar was an easier target.

When asked whether WestStar had been offered exactly the same deal as the two HBO licenced partners, LIME and Logic, he said “of course not”. He would not give any information regarding terms of any of the contracts.

HBO Latin America provides HBO and MAX programming to Latin America and the Caribbean.

It would appear, from a release issued by WestStar on their website that the sticking problem between the two companies is the date and certain language of one paragraph in the contract documents provided by HBO. The further the date goes back to when HBO want WestStar to commence paying them the more difficult an agreement can be met. The new owners of WestStar may well be not inclined to pay anything to HBO until they took over in August 2012.

Please see related story published in iNews Cayman on October 3, 2013 “HBO and WestStar TV cannot agree – WestStar say mixed signals” at: http://www.ieyenews.com/2013/10/hbo-and-weststar-tv-cannot-agree/