Poland's TP agrees EUR 550m settlement with Danes

(WARSAW) - Poland's Telekomunikacja Polska (TP) telecoms giant will pay 550 millions euros ($707 million) to Danish Polish Telecommunications Group (DPTG), ending a dispute over a fibre-optics work from 1991, TP said Friday.

"We've chosen a difficult solution, but after all, it's the best for TP and its shareholders," TP president Maciej Witucki said in a Friday statement published on the company's website.

"The agreement has resolved the longest dispute in the history of Telekomunikacja Polska allowing us to concentrate on doing business," he added, referring to the payment dispute over a fiber-optic network linking northern and southern Poland.

In exchange for TP's payment of 550 million euros, the Danish company will withdraw claims worth 720 million euros, part of which had been payment ordered by the Vienna International Arbitral Centre in August 2010.

Payments are to be made in equal tranches of 275 million euros with the first coming Friday, and the second after DPTG withdraws its claims.

DPTG was entitled to 14.8 percent of the earnings from the fibre-optics network over a 15-year period.

France Telecom a holds 47,5 percent stake in TP, the largest single telecommunications company in Poland, an ex-communist 2004 EU member of 38 million.