MTN to defend 'opportunistic' $4.2 billion suit in South African court

[October 31, 2017]  JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - MTN sees a $4.2 billion claim by Turkcell in a South African court over a disputed Iranian mobile phone license as "opportunistic" and "baseless", the company said on Tuesday after filing a defense plea.

 A shopper walks past an MTN shop at a mall in Johannesburg, South Africa, March 2, 2017. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko/File Photo

Turkcell first sued MTN in a U.S. court in 2012, alleging the company used bribery and wrongful influence to win a lucrative Iranian license that was originally awarded to Turkcell.

It dropped the suit a year later after U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a separate case made clear that U.S. courts would not have jurisdiction in a claim involving two foreign firms in an overseas dispute.

A year later it filed in South Africa, where the case has been stuck in procedural wrangling since.

"Turkcell's claim is opportunistic, an abuse of the process of Court, baseless and without merit," MTN said in a statement after filing a defense plea on Monday.

Turkcell was not immediately available to comment.

MTN obtained the license in Iran in 2005 and maintains that Turkcell missed out because it would not comply with an Iranian rule that caps the shareholding in the license at 49 percent.

Iran is MTN's third largest market out of the 22 countries the company operates in.

MTN previously appointed a retired British judge to lead an external investigation into Turkcell's allegations. That probe dismissed the accusations as "a fabric of lies, distortions and inventions".

(Reporting by TJ Strydom, editing by Louise Heavens)

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