MOSCOW, April 3 (Prime-Tass) -- The Moscow Arbitration Court adjourned until April 7 the hearings of a lawsuit filed by Norway's telecommunication company Telenor, seeking to find VimpelCom's extraordinary general meeting of shareholders (EGM) held on September 14, 2005, void.
Telenor holds 26.6% in Russia?s second largest mobile operator VimpelCom, while Russia's Alfa Group indirectly owns 32.9%.
At the EGM, VimpelCom's shareholders approved the purchase of Ukrainian Radiosystems (URS) mobile operator by a simple majority of votes.
Telenor filed the claim, as well as two more, on January 26.
"The second claim is against VimpelCom, five British Virgin Islands and Cyprus companies, and one individual, that Telenor believes were the sellers of URS," Telenor said in late January. "In addition to seeking key information regarding the transaction, this claim seeks to discredit the acquisition of URS on the basis that it was completed in violation of Russian law," Telenor said.
Telenor's third claim is against VimpelCom, and seeks to invalidate the decision to complete the URS transaction taken by VimpelCom's CEO Alexander Izosimov, without the approval of VimpelCom's board of directors.
VimpelCom purchased URS for a total of U.S. $231.3 million on November 11, 2005.
VimpelCom had been trying for many months to enter the Ukrainian mobile market by buying URS. However, Telenor tried to block the purchase of URS saying that the price was too high. The subscriber base of URS amounted to 260,000 people as of January 1.
It is widely believed Telenor opposed the deal as the purchase may create a competitor to Kyivstar, another Ukrainian mobile operator. Telenor holds 56.5% in Kyivstar, while Alfa Group holds 43.5%.
VimpelCom provides telecommunications services in Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
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Posted to the site on 3rd April 2006
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/16798.php