Lousy journalism, if writer loosely interchanged the 2. They are 2 separate legal entities. ABS CBN cannot be held liable for issues with Sky, and vice versa.
If the article is accurate, why would Solar expect ABS CBN to pay for carriage fees? It (ABS CBN) already had a direct agreement with NBA.
So what makes sense is that Skycable did not pay the carriage fees? Did they (Sky) assume they can piggy back on ABS CBN's licensing agreement with the NBA?