Declan Ganley, CEO at Rivada Space Networks, says his firm has won a long-running dispute with Chinese-backed entities over Rivada’s rights to satellite spectrum.

He commented: “I received good Thanksgiving day news from my excellent legal teams in Liechtenstein and Germany.”

Ganley added: “[The decision is] a crushing victory over Chinese backed lawfare as we win in the ultimate court in Liechtenstein, ‘The Constitutional Court’, which has dismissed a constitutional complaint against a Supreme Court decision of February 7th 2025; [and] injunction proceedings regarding usage of Liechtenstein satellite spectrum frequencies.

“Of course, the idea is to make a private sector operator pay from its own resources to fight hundreds of actions in defence, even though they know we will ultimately win, as we have again today. Every penny spent on legal defences is in their mind a re-direction of resources away from getting Rivada’s space-based Outernet operational,” he complained.

He explained that – to date – Rivada has spent $36 million on lawyers and related expenses in flighting off “communist China” and its claims.

However, there is no further news on fresh funding for Rivada and its planned ‘Outernet’ laser-linked satellite system. Fifty percent of Rivada Space Networks’ primary International Telecommunication Union (ITU) obligations include deploying 144 satellites by June 2026 and another 144 by September 2026 to maintain its priority spectrum rights for its constellation.

Previously, Rivada received a waiver in June 2023 for a 10 per cent deployment milestone for 2023, but the subsequent deadlines of 288 satellites by mid-2026 and the full 576 fleet by mid-2028 remains firmly in place. Failure to meet these deployment milestones risks the company losing its priority access to the reserved spectrum.

Without the funding in place to build and launch its fleet – by the due dates – Rivada is at risk of losing its spectrum rights.

Other posts by :

1. Will we take an AI bubble bath?
2. Eutelsat shareholders upset over Rights Issue
3. Amazon Leo satellites en route to French Guiana
4. Deutsche Bank reveals targets for AST SpaceMobile
5. AST SpaceMobile boss outlines benefits
6. Report: LEO build-out accelerates
7. Germany outlines space commitment
8. Analysis: Impact of AT&T on US telcos and cable
9. Bezos rocket production boosted

Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite, Satellite, Spectrum

Tags: china, rivada, satellite