Esat's Cablelink dream in tatters

It hasn't been a great 1999 for the young Turks of Irish business. The fall from grace of CBT, Stentor, ICON and Chris Horn's Iona Technologies has put the spotlight on the new generation of entrepreneurs. Now Denis O'Brien's dream of cementing his company, Esat Telecom's role as chief competitor to Telecom Eireann has suffered a serious setback by his failure to win the bidding battle for Cablelink.

The subsequent unedifying court battle, in which Mr O'Brien and his consortium's legal team tried to pin the blame for this failure on all and sundry did him few favours.

First there were allegations of sharp practice and "bid-rigging" by successful suitor NTL Communications. Then there were claims of collusion by Telecom on the basis that it wanted to avoid Esat winning at all costs because of bad blood between the two. Finally, NM Rothschild was targeted, being accused of changing the rules unfairly and colluding with NTL to give the latter an unfair advantage.

Denis O'Brien has cause to be annoyed, but mostly at himself and his advisers. He has performed a key role in ensuring that the Irish telecoms market was opened to competition but his consortium misjudged this bid.

NTL simply played the game better, noting carefully the scope allowed to the vendors in the documents and phrasing its offer in the most tempting of terms. Resorting to Canadian legal precedent was never likely to win the day for the Esat-led Howberry consortium.