fbpx

South Africa’s Vodacom Sued For $14B In DR Congo

South Africa’s Vodacom Sued For $14B In DR Congo

South African-based telecoms operator Vodacom Group has been sued for $14 billion in the Democratic Republic of Congo by the controlling shareholder of the company’s minority partner.

Alieu Conteh is suing Vodacom for undermining his “position as a statutory director of Congolese Wireless Network (CWN), which owns a 49 percent stake in Vodacom Congo”.

“Conteh’s action in the Commercial Court of Kinshasa/Gombe also seeks to overturn a court decision stripping him of his directorship,” stated the report.

“Vodacom International Limited is opposing Mr Conteh’s claim, which we believe is unfounded and unsubstantiated,” Vodacom’s Tshepo Ramodibe told Bloomberg.

South African companies operating in other African countries have in recent months come under heavy penalties with the most prominent one being a $5.2 billion fine levied on another telecom operator, MTN Group in Nigeria for not switchi off 5.1 million unregistered SIM cards.

In its interim results, Vodacom also alluded to regulatory changes affecting some of its African operations. Vodacom says the implementation of customer registration requirements in the DRC, Tanzania and Mozambique is under way.

“In each country, the industry is engaging with authorities to improve the process to ensure customer registration,” Vodacom said in its results announcement.

The telecoms firm indicated in the result that t Conteh has launched a legal challenge against a previous court decision in that country to remove him as a “statutory manager of CWN”.

Vodacom has dismissed Conteh’s claim as being “without merit” and the company says it is opposing the court bid.

“There has been no change in regards to this matter since the interim results were published. We reiterate that Vodacom International Limited is opposing the action and view the claim as unfounded and without merit,” Vodacom executive head of corporate affairs Tshepo Ramodibe told ITWeb.