Pegasus Communications Corp. got shot down in yet another court request involving DirecTV Inc.
A federal judge in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Portland, Maine, entered an order Thursday denying Pegasus’ request to prevent DirecTV from providing its direct-broadcast satellite service directly to consumers in areas served by Pegasus subsidiary Pegasus Satellite Television Inc.
“We are pleased with today's ruling, which will allow us to market our service to millions of consumers in rural America seeking an alternative to cable,” DirecTV executive vice president of sales, distribution and business development Steve Cox said in a prepared statement.
Thursday’s announcement was just the latest in a long-running legal battle between the two companies.
On June 1, the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative announced that it no longer had the exclusive rights to distribute DirecTV’s DBS service in its territories, which terminated Pegasus’ exclusive agreements, as well.
Back in April, a federal jury awarded DirecTV $51.5 million in damages from Pegasus regarding a lawsuit Pegasus filed claiming that DirecTV breached a joint marketing contract. Then in May, a federal district court judge granted DirecTV’s motions to eliminate all remaining claims against it by Pegasus and Golden Sky Systems Inc. in the parties’ four-year-old lawsuit.
