MTN Group Ltd. has requested that South Africa’s High Court in Johannesburg dismiss a $4.2 billion damages claim by Turkcell, five years after the case was first brought in relation to the awarding of an Iranian license in 2005.
MTN, Africa’s largest wireless operator by sales denies allegations by Turkcell that it paid bribes to South African and Iranian officials to secure 49 percent of Irancell Telecommunication Co. Services, according to court papers. MTN has asked for the case be dismissed with costs paid by the Istanbul-based carrier.
“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. “We have every expectation that we will prevail.”
In a statement made in June, Turkcell said it had a “strong claim” for “compensation of damages resulting from unlawful acts of MTN during the tender process for Iran’s first private GSM licence.”
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”.
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 it 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.
The $4.2 billion figure is based on profit the Turkish company says it could have made had it been able to keep the license plus interest.
“We consider that it is most unjust to burden MTN with a fifth round of litigation of substantially the same matters,” MTN said. “Turkcell was the author of its own misfortune in failing to obtain the license.”