NACC chairman Panthep Klanarongran said today that official notices have been sent to the three accused and the the Rai Som Co Ltd so they could get ready to defend themselves, and prepare lawyers and assets for use as bails when they are prosecuted in the court.
Indicted by the NACC are Sorayuth, his Rai Som company, Mrs Pichapa Iamsa-ard, an MCOT employee and Montha Theeradet, an employee of Rai Som Co.
They were accused of cheating then Mass Communication Organisation of Thailand (MCOT), now changed to MCOT Plc after listed on the stock market, of more than B138 million in advertising revenue in 2005 and 2006.
The NACC probe revealed that in June 2003, MCOT contracted Sorayuth to be the daily host for its Thueng Luk Thueng Khon news programme on TV Channel 9 for B5,000 an episode.
The programme proved popular and prompted Sorayuth to establish Rai Som in February 2004.
Rai Som also had a contract with MCOT to co-produce the Kui Kui Khao news programme. Rai Som was allocated advertising slots of between two and five minutes during the news programme.
If its advertisements exceeded the time slots, Rai Som was supposed to pay MCOT a rate of at least B200,000 per minute.
Sorayuth allegedly paid Mrs Pichapa to help conceal the records of the advertising airtime Rai Som used.
The NACC found that Sorayuth made six payments worth a total of B739,770.50 to Mrs Pichapa who was responsible for recording commercial time.
The NACC said Ms Pichapa managed to conceal the recordings of the extra advertising time of Rai Som from February 4, 2005, to June 30, 2006 amounted to B138.79 million.
On Aug 31, 2006, Rai Som sought a 30% discount on the amount and paid B103.95 million to MCOT but was rejected and the case was later brought to the NACC to punish state employee responsible.
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