In a company statement issued on March 8 ACT said that the transaction is entirely subject to the approval of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Delaware, and the satisfactory closing of the transaction within the parameters dictated by the court.

The company had not intended to announce the transaction until the completion of the transaction, as while it believes the outcome will be positive, there is no guarantee that completion will take place at this stage.

"Full details of the transaction will be released upon satisfactory completion of the transaction, when and if this occurs. The company does not believe it is appropriate to further discuss the transaction prior to the approval of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Delaware and the proposed closing," said Roger May, chairman of ACT-US.

Orbcomm is a joint venture of Dulles-based Orbital Sciences and Canada's Teleglobe Inc of Montreal. Established in the late 1990s as one of several LEO communication constellations, Orbcomm had hoped to capture the lion's share of the emerging store and forward communications market.

Satellite based store and forward communications networks have the potential to revolutionize both asset management and transport tracking by using low cost transmitters to communicate with constellations of satellites in low earth orbit before forwarding the data to central hubs.

However like all the LEO constellations, Orbcomm has experienced various problems in rolling out its service and reaching a break even position. Since September 15, 2000, Orbcomm has been operating under Chapter 11 protection.

But, with one of its main shareholders, Orbital Sciences, also facing financial problems a decision was taken earlier this year to liquidate Orbcomm and put the company and its assets up for auction through a Delaware bankruptcy court.

Prior to the auction process getting underway Orbcomm and its shareholders has moved to ensure sufficient operating funds were available for Orbcomm to continue operations.

While seeking out potential financial and strategic investors, Orbcomm also made aggressive moves to reduce expenses while signing new customers to its installed base of 37,000 subscriber devices currently in use around the world.

With all aspects of the satellite constellation, ground stations, and distribution networks up and running the company represented yet another golden opportunity for a new owner to buy if the price was right.

According to a company spokeswoman at Advanced Communications Technologies (ACT) in Melbourne, Australia, the auction process is now complete and ACT's bid is awaiting final court approval.

Additional information on the price and future operations was not available at the time of this report being published but further information was expected to be available later today.

ACT has been an active player in recent spectrum auctions in Australia and elsewhere. According to a company profile, "Advanced Communications Technologies is a leader in the field of Software Defined Radio and has developed a proprietary, multiple-protocol wireless base-station -- SpectruCell.

"[By] eliminating the use of Qualcomm chipsets, protocol specific hardware and by conducting all signal processing in software, SpectruCell provides for simultaneous support of multiple mobile communications protocols (CDMA, WCDMA, UMTS, GSM & 3G) all in the same base station.

"Support for additional protocols is achieved through the uploading of additional software modules. By implementing the company's SpectruCell technology network providers will be able to maintain service to their existing customer base and preserve the full utilization of their existing network infrastructure while at the same time securing a highly flexible migration path for evolving 3G-based protocols such as WCDMA and UMTS.

"SpectruCell is complemented by several other wireless technologies currently under development in Australia. Advanced Communication Technologies Inc. plans to market these products throughout North, South and Central America.

The latest move by ACT follows a buyout of Beneventure Capital, LLC, a US venture capital firm that specializes in securing interests in companies involved in communications, semiconductor, Internet services and the financial services sectors, and currently retains interests in a portfolio of 11 companies.

At the time of this buyout Roger May, Chairman of ACT said "Beneventure's portfolio contains a range of highly innovative companies, including several prominent telecommunications companies which in many cases are developing solutions for wireless data and communications. "We believe these product lines will provide strong synergies for the SpectruCell technology, ACT and its associate Australon Inc.," said May.

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