Coop Litigation News

Tracking Legal Events involving Electric & Telephone Cooperatives

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Virgin Islands Telephone Corporation (VI)

The Virgin Islands Telephone Corporation (“Vitelco”) is a corporation duly formed pursuant to the laws of the United States Virgin Islands, having its principal office in the United States Virgin Islands.  Vitelco is local telephone exchange carrier regulated by the Virgin Islands Public Services Commission and as such is a corporation affected with public interest.  Vitelco was a member and Patron of Rural Telephone Finance Corporation from 1987 until 2005.

Vitelco is not a Rural Telephone Cooperative; however, it has done business with many of the major players involved with Rural Telephone Cooperatives and Rural Electric Cooperatives nationwide like the National Rural Telephone Finance Corporation and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and its dealings with those entites will be informative to those interested in Rural Coops.

Some of these links take you outside of the Coop Litigation News website so we aren't responsible for the content.


News


Bankrupt Virgin Islands telecom may get new owner

The Jamicia WI Gleaner
Wednesay, February 4, 2009

A United States financial cooperative has offered to acquire a Caribbean telephone operator and other assets of a company that owes it US $525 million.


National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corp, based in Herndon, Virginia, said it would acquire Innovative Telephone Company and other assets of bankrupt Innovative Communication Corp, or ICC, to satisfy part of a bankruptcy judgment against the U.S. Virgin Islands-based corporation.




Trustee: USVI bankruptcy auction delayed by crisis

Associated Press
December 22, 2008

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands - Auctions of companies that were part of a bankrupt U.S. Virgin Islands media and communications network have been postponed because of the global financial crisis, a court-appointed trustee said Monday.




In the United States District Court for the United States Virgin Islands
Prosser et al. v. National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corp., et al.
Case Number 1:08-cv-00107-CVG-GWC

Brief Summary

    This is a complex federal lawsuit alledging violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), the Virgin Islands RICO law as wll as other torts and conspiracies by the defendants against the former owers of Innovative Communictions Company, LLC the parent corporation of Virgin Islands Telephone Corporation.

    The Plaintiffs seek recovery from the defendants for substantial damages and other relief from the damages.  The last time we reviewed the Court's Docket the litigation was still in the motion stage and naturally hotly contested.





IRS Form 990s

As non-profit corporation the Internal Revenue Service requires Rural Telephone Cooperatives to file an informational return much like a corporate income tax return each year.  These "IRS Form 990s" are public information and Coops are obligated to provide interested persons access to copies.

A study of these IRS Form 990s can reveal interesting information about these Coops including things like salaries and benefits of executives and ownership of other for profit corporations. 

Since Virgin Islands Telephone Corporation is not a non-profit corporation or cooperative itself, there are no IRS Form 990s available for it.

Website

Most Rural Telephone Cooperatives maintain websites but they rarely provide useful or material information about important aspects of their operations.

Innovative Communication Corporation is the parent corporation of Virgin Islands Telephone Corporation and it maintains the following website:



This page was last modified on Sunday, January 10, 2010