Infinity Broadband Ltd., trading as C3 Pure Fibre (C3), is preparing to seek leave to appeal to Committee of the Privy Council following the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal’s ruling today which held that license fees historically charged to C3 and collected by the Utility Regulation and Competition Office ("OfReg") were lawful.
In seeking leave to appeal, C3 maintains its position that until corrective legislation was passed in December 2024 and December 2025, the statutory framework in the Cayman Islands did not lawfully permit the historical charging and collection of these fees from the ICT sector from 2002 onwards.
Section 30(1) of the ICT Act in force from 1 January 2019 until December 2025 provided that:
“A license granted under this Law shall be subject to the prescribed license fees which shall be determined by the Office.”
In applying for leave to appeal to the Privy Council, the Cayman Island’s highest court of appeal, C3’s position is that the proper statutory interpretation of the word "prescribed" is that Parliament intended license fees of this kind, including fees constituting coercive revenue or taxation, to be fixed transparently through regulations and published in the Gazette.
C3’s position is that the legislation did not instead empower OfReg to determine and collect such fees solely through individual license agreements, under which the fees imposed could differ between licensees, even where those agreements were published on OfReg’s website.
C3 considers this to be a matter of public importance for the ICT sector in the Cayman Islands, with broader implications for regulatory transparency and accountability in the jurisdiction.
"‘We welcome the Court of Appeal's careful consideration of these important questions, but we respectfully disagree with its conclusion on how license fees must be established under the ICT Act,” said Randy Merren, Managing Director of C3 Pure Fibre.
“We believe this is a point of real significance not only for C3 but for the wider ICT sector and the consumers who rely on it, and we intend to ask the Privy Council to consider it."
Background
After initially having its 2023 application for leave to apply to the Grand Court for judicial review of the legality of the ICT license fees dismissed in 2023, C3 successfully appealed that decision and on 28 August 2025 the Grand Court (Kawaley J) ruled that C3 was not liable to pay the Royalty Fee or Regulatory Fees as (1) no regulations had been passed stating what those fees were, and (2) the royalty fee would not have been lawful even if regulations had been passed due to a lack of clear statutory authority empowering OfReg to charge and collect such a fee.
The Grand Court’s judgment paved the way for C3 to apply for an order requiring OfReg to pay back all unlawfully charged royalty and regulatory fees paid to date. However, following OfReg’s appeal, the Court of Appeal’s has instead now held that (a) section 30 (without more) acts as the necessary statutory authority authorizing OfReg to charge the Royalty Fee, despite the fact this fee is a form of “coercive revenue” or “tax”, and section 30 empowers OfReg to charge and collect the Regulatory Fee and the Royalty Fee without either fee needing to be first set out in regulations.