{"id":12079,"date":"2012-07-04T00:12:11","date_gmt":"2012-07-03T22:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/update-2-mtn-asks-court-to-throw-out-turkcell-suit\/"},"modified":"2012-07-04T00:12:11","modified_gmt":"2012-07-03T22:12:11","slug":"update-2-mtn-asks-court-to-throw-out-turkcell-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-2-mtn-asks-court-to-throw-out-turkcell-suit\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 2-MTN asks court to throw out Turkcell suit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG, July 3<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; South African telecoms<br \/>\ncompany MTN asked a U.S. court on Tuesday to dismiss a<br \/>\n$4.2 billion suit brought by Turkish rival Turkcell<br \/>\nin connection with alleged underhand tactics to obtain a highly<br \/>\nprofitable Iranian mobile licence.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>MTN said that the suit filed by Istanbul-based Turkcell had<br \/>\nno legal merit and that the U.S. federal court in Washington,<br \/>\nwhere the case was filed in February, did not have jurisdiction.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;MTN and MTN International both lack sufficient contact with<br \/>\nthe United States to be subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S.<br \/>\ncourt,&#8221; it said in a statement. &#8220;MTN therefore remains confident<br \/>\nthat the claim will be dismissed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Africa&#8217;s largest mobile operator said that the court should<br \/>\nalso throw out the case because Turkcell had lost a related<br \/>\nParis arbitration hearing against the Turkish company&#8217;s former<br \/>\nIranian joint-venture partner.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In its filing in Washington, Turkcell says that MTN bribed<br \/>\nboth South African and Iranian officials and asked South Africa<br \/>\nto provide weapons to Iran to acquire the permit &#8211; allegations<br \/>\nthat have proved embarrassing for Pretoria and one of South<br \/>\nAfrica&#8217;s biggest companies.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Turkey&#8217;s largest mobile operator initially won a bid for the<br \/>\nlicense in 2004, but Tehran later backed out of the deal and<br \/>\nawarded the business to MTN in 2005. MTN generated $1.3 billion,<br \/>\nor 9 percent of annual revenue, from its Iran venture last year.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Turkcell was expected to respond to MTN&#8217;s dismissal motion<br \/>\nby August 1. MTN would then give its reply by August 15, with a<br \/>\ncourt decision expected later this year.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JOHANNESBURG, July 3 (Reuters) &#8211; South African telecoms company MTN asked a U.S. court on Tuesday to dismiss a $4.2 billion suit brought by Turkish rival Turkcell in connection with alleged underhand tactics to obtain a highly profitable Iranian mobile licence. MTN said that the suit filed by Istanbul-based Turkcell had no legal merit and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}