The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

Below is the MOU, which is a binding contract prepared entirely by Gwen Tauiliili-Langkilde in her capacity as in-house legal counsel for ASTCA. Some points of interest include the fact that there is no requirement that the Notice to Proceed be in writing, that ASTCA is agreeing to provide all the listings in their system, and that there is an early termination clause. The contract is between ASTCA and Pago Pago Consultants (PPC) which is a sole proprietorship owned by John Newton.

The section of the MOU titled ASTCA's Responsibilities is very poorly composed and difficult to read. So, we will re-structure that part of the MOU to make the contents clearer and easier to understand.

This is the original wording and structure as shown in the MOU:

Upon a mutually agreed upon date. ASTCA agrees to supply PPC with its subscriber listings in digital format. either CSV (Comma Separated Values) or Excel. To the extent available in ASTCA’s customer service  records, the listings will include the subscriber name, village where the telephone is located, a notation if the line is a facsimile, and telephone number. The same shall be grouped by residential landline subscribers, post paid cell phone subscribers, government offices, and commercial subscribers to appear in the classified or yellow pages section.

Along with the listings, ASTCA will also provide PPC with the General Information section in MicroSoft Word format.

This uses the same words as above with a couple of spelling corrections and restructured for easier reading:

Upon a mutually agreed upon date, ASTCA agrees to supply PPC with its subscriber listings in digital format, either CSV (Comma Separated Values) or Excel. 

To the extent available in ASTCA’s customer service records, the listings will include the subscriber’s name, the village where the telephone is located, a notation if the line is a facsimile, and a telephone number. 

The same shall be grouped by:

  1. residential landline subscribers,
  2. postpaid cell phone subscribers,
  3. government offices,
  4. and commercial subscribers to appear in the classified or yellow pages section.

Along with the listings, ASTCA will also provide PPC with the General Information section in Microsoft Word format.

Note:  The readability of this section is greatly improved.  You can now clearly see that there are 4 listings and one General Information section required of ASTCA to fulfill their responsibilities.  Item 2 (postpaid cell phone subscribers) was never offered to Newton and this fact is undisputed.

Note that in ASTCA responsibilities there is no requirement for the “mutually agreed upon date” to be in writing. 
This is very important – to be discussed elsewhere on this site. 

Click the image below to see the full MOU.