The nation’s largest telco Telstra has been forced into a public apology towards much smaller ISP Exetel after the smaller ISP filed a lawsuit against Telstra in early March.

Telstra this morning posted the above apology in the Australian newspaper, with Exetel chief John Linton additionally posting on his blog that the judge in the case had decided that Telstra would pay Exetel’s court costs.

Linton never completely explained the situation behind the lawsuit, although it appears as if the case revolves around credit checking agency Veda Advantage. In Telstra’s statement this morning, the company said it had reported to Veda that Exetel had defaulted on three of its contracts, relying on third party information for the claim.

Telstra “acknowledges that these entries were incorrect and has had all of them removed from Exetel’s corporate credit report,” Telstra’s advertisement stated. In March Linton wrote he had taken Telstra to court to “attempt to get redress for the most obvious of their operational inequities.”

“There is no question that Telstra remains an organisation that is unbelievably hard to deal with and has reached a stage of contented bloatedness where even one of its legal representatives laughed without a hint of ruefulness at the concept that Telstra might like to act in a timely way to the matters being discussed,” he added.

This morning Linton crowed over those who had told him “how stupid Exetel was to take Telstra to court to force them to publicly apologise for their unconscionable behaviour, although he described Telstra’s apology as “mealy mouthed”.

Image credit: Telstra

Related posts:

1. “Fat” Internode’s plan changes a “joke”, claims Linton
2. Exetel’s Linton thanks Conroy for “free plug”
3. John Linton’s Exetel sues Telstra
4. Linton mystified by NBN business case “drivel”
5. God help Australia, says Linton on NBN

1. Geordie
   Posted 20/04/2010 at 3:37 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Still a caveated apology eh? “Telstra relied on third party information”. The ethical thing to do would’ve been to apologise unreservedly.

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 20/04/2010 at 3:46 pm | Permalink | Reply

     Heh quite possibly, but I guess it depends on the terms of their legal agreement ;)

2. Anonymous
   Posted 21/04/2010 at 10:00 am | Permalink | Reply

   Is Linton’s blog the only source of information you have for your news?

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 21/04/2010 at 10:36 am | Permalink | Reply

     Hardly ;)

     • Anonymous
       Posted 21/04/2010 at 11:10 am | Permalink | Reply

       Just an unhealthy obsession with it?

       • Geordie
         Posted 21/04/2010 at 11:13 am | Permalink | Reply

         There’s no unhealthy obsession with Linton’s blog, but there’s certainly industry-wide bemusement. Linton is a real character as far as Australian IT is concerned and when he gets into a fight, it’s certainly notable. Stark, raving notable even.

         • Renai LeMay
           Posted 21/04/2010 at 11:27 am | Permalink | Reply

           +1 to what Geordie said.