US Court to Hear Telenor's Suit Vs Alfa Group

MOSCOW, Oct 23 (Prime-Tass) -- An arbitration court in New York has scheduled for December 7-8 hearings of a lawsuit filed by Norwegian telecommunication company Telenor against Ukraine's Storm, a unit of Russia's Alfa Group, Telenor said in a statement Monday.

The court has rejected Storm's motions to stop consideration of the lawsuit and to postpone the case hearings, Telenor said.

Telenor filed the lawsuit with the court in February. Telenor claims that Storm violated the shareholders agreement of Ukraine's largest mobile operator Kyivstar.

Telenor holds 56.5% in Kyivstar, while Storm holds 43.5%.

In the lawsuit, Telenor seeks to oblige Storm's representatives to participate in Kyivstar's board of directors' meetings and to withdraw any lawsuits it has filed against Telenor in Ukrainian courts and to not file anymore.

Storm's representatives on Kyivstar?s board of directors have missed several board meetings. A decision can only be made at the meeting if at least one representative from its shareholders is present at the meeting. In addition, Storm and its affiliates have filed several lawsuits with Ukrainian courts, seeking to overturn Kyivstar's original charter and have parity votes at the board meetings.

On October 3 Ukraine's Supreme Court upheld Storm and ruled that Kyivstar's charter should be amended.

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Posted to the site on 23rd October 2006