Chief Justice Carl Singh and Justices of Appeal Claudette Singh and Ian Chang also awarded $150,000 costs, which Consumers Advisory Bureau (CAB) must pay the monopoly.

The litigation had its genesis in a Public Utilities Commission (PUC) order of October 11, 1995, temporarily reducing the fixed final rates GT&T was charging.

The dissatisfied utility successfully moved against the edict and a secured that High Court decision on January 13, 1997.

GT&T then published a notice in the daily newspapers, stating that, based on that ruling, the charges for local overseas and telecommunications service in existence at October 21, 1995 would be restored from midnight on January 19, 1997.

In April 1997, GT&T made another publication in the same media informing customers that it intends to impose the additional charge, referred to as a surcharge, to recover revenue lost through the 1995 PUC directive and, later the same month, CAB initiated proceedings seeking:

· a declaration that no surcharge could be unilaterally imposed by GT&T;

· another declaration that no surcharge could be imposed by GT&T without PUC authorisation and that the one proposed was illegal and void and· an injunction restraining GT&T from imposing the surcharge unilaterally.