The damage phase of a lawsuit involving Australia's second largest telecommunications firm dropped a bombshell when it revealed the country's largest also shared in lucrative dealings with Gibraltar-based adult entertainment company Gilsan.
Gilsan sued Optus, the number two Australian telecom, over unpaid commissions for several years. But testimony in the damage phase has revealed that the number one Australian telecom, Telstra, also profited from a deal similar to Optus's with Gilsan – housing porn in its data centers and taking a piece of the per-minute charges from U.S. and European-based calls – the same arrangement Optus had made with Gilsan.
Asian Pacific press reports this week indicated that it isn't known yet how much Telstra actually earned from such a deal, but Optus was shown to have made over $100 million from the Gilsan deal. Neither Telstra nor Optus actually sold telephone sex, but they brought the porn sellers and the buyers together, the reports said.
The news of Telstra's deal with Gilsan came just days after a Hong Kong-based telephone sex company, Asia Pacific Telecommunications, also decided to sue Optus for unpaid commissions said to go back as far as nine years. That case has a July 8 court hearing to set a trial date.
Gilsan sued Optus in 2004, a case revealing Optus as a major broker in Internet and other digital porn form the island of Vanatu to the United States and Europe. Optus was found liable for the back commissions to Gilsan, but a judge has yet to hand down a final ruling on just how much money Optus owes Gilsan.
It isn't known yet just how much money APT will ask for, but various reports indicate it could exceed the estimated $11.5 million for which Optus may be liable to pay Gilsan, because APT ran more traffic through Optus than Gilsan did.
APT's claim ties to phone sex services charging premium rates for chat lines, using country codes in Papua New Guinea and other tiny Pacific island nations, with the calls getting bounced back to the U.S. or short stopped in Australia, as Australian news site News.com.au described it.
"The advantages of sending calls to these countries are that telcos can charge high call rates, costs are kept down, and the content is far less regulated than in Australia, the U.S., or Europe," News.com.au said. "They are also known for offering investors a private and confidential business environment."
