Turkish telecoms big, Turkcell is again in court docket subsequent week to pursue a bribery and corruption case, by which it’s looking for a minimum of R75-billion ($4.2 billion) in damages from MTN Group within the South African Supreme Courtroom.
The supreme court docket of attraction in Bloemfontein will on Monday and Tuesday subsequent week hear from Turkcell about why it feels a decrease court docket – the excessive court docket in Gauteng – erred when it present in 2022 that South African courts didn’t have jurisdiction within the long-running matter.
On the time, MTN lauded the excessive court docket’s judgment and advised the authorized battle was over. However Turkcell didn’t agree with that evaluation, and sought an attraction, which can now be heard by the supreme court docket.
The stakes for each corporations are monumental.
Turkcell first filed papers in South Africa in November 2013 relating to a licensing course of in Iran that came about in 2005 by which it was an lively participant.
The licence went to a consortium that included MTN. Turkcell later sued MTN for US$4.2-billion (R75.3-billion on the time of writing) in damages and has accused MTN over time of paying bribes to safe the licence.
Turkcell claimed it misplaced out to MTN after the latter paid bribes and different inducements to safe the profitable stake. It additionally sought damages within the excessive court docket from former MTN Group CEO Phuthuma Nhleko and former director Irene Charnley, each of whom have been intimately concerned within the negotiations with the Iranians to safe the Irancell licence. Nhleko and Charnley have each denied the allegations.
On its deserves
Cedric Soule, a lawyer for Turkcell, advised TechCentral an interview on Friday that the corporate strongly disagrees with the excessive court docket’s assertion that South African courts shouldn’t have jurisdiction over the case.
He mentioned Turkcell will argue on the supreme court docket of attraction subsequent week that native courts do, certainly, have jurisdiction within the matter and that it ought to be heard in South Africa, on its deserves, by the excessive court docket.
Soule mentioned Turkcell believes it nonetheless has a powerful case towards not solely MTN but additionally towards Nhleko and Charnley. “MTN interfered with our contractual rights and took away the GSM licence that was ours,” he alleged.
“The deserves of the case have by no means been dominated on. Whether or not we’re proper or mistaken, what we’re serious about is a court docket being confronted by the proof, it and making a dedication on it. We haven’t had that chance.”
He mentioned the “correct place” for this to occur is South Africa, not Iran, which he mentioned doesn’t have a judiciary that’s unbiased of the state.
“We don’t imagine we’ll get a good listening to in Iran. The Iranian justice system is managed by the state, and we’re making critical allegations towards the Iranian state,” he mentioned. “When Turkcell was kicked out of the GSM licence in 2006, Turkcell utilized to the Iranian courts for an injunction, and it was ignored.”
He mentioned that regardless of the excessive court docket discovering towards Turkcell, the corporate believes that South Africa has an unbiased judiciary and that it’s going to get a good listening to right here.
Earlier makes an attempt by Turkcell to resolve the matter via worldwide arbitration failed. The corporate approached the South African courts after a legislative change affected the jurisdiction of a US court docket from which it had earlier sought reduction.
It alleged in its software to the US court docket that MTN had conspired with Iranian officers to oust it from the profitable consortium that bid for the licence and take its place by promising to make use of its affect with the South African authorities so it might procure defence tools and garner help for its nuclear improvement programme at conferences of the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company.
Turkcell’s authorized problem got here regardless of the findings in 2013 of the Hoffmann Committee, appointed by MTN in 2012, which cleared the South African group of wrongdoing in Iran. That committee, chaired by South African-born former senior British jurist Leonard Hoffmann, discovered there was no conspiracy between MTN and Iranian officers to take away Turkcell from the bidding course of. Certainly, the committee discovered that Turkcell’s allegations have been a “cloth of lies, distortions and innovations”.
The Hoffman report cleared MTN, Nhleko and Charnley of wrongdoing. Lord Hoffmann discovered that MTN made no funds to South Africa’s then ambassador to Iran, Yusuf Saloojee, and neither Nhleko nor Charnley authorised former MTN Irancell director Chris Kilowan to vow him something, as Turkcell had alleged. Kilowan’s allegations kind the idea of Turkcell’s claims, however the committee discovered his proof to be “unreliable”.