Alfa-Telenor legal battle escalates

A US court granted a Telenor request on March 11 that four Alfa Group companies be held in contempt for not complying with November 2008 rulings to deposit Kyivstar shares with the court. In addition, the court ordered Altimo, one of the four Alfa companies, to “secure dismissal of EC Venture action” (the action in Ukrainian court is the reason why Altimo is unable to deposit shares) by March 23 – otherwise the company will be fined an additional USD 100 ths per day to be doubled every 30 days. The court repeated its order for Alfa to divest its Kyivstar shares or decrease its stake in Turkcell and Ukrainian WiMax operator UNT to 5%. Meanwhile, yesterday it was confirmed that a Russian bailiff had arrested Telenor’s stake (33.6%) in VimpelCom, which Telenor considered as response to the US court’s ruling. Earlier, an Omsk court ordered Telenor to pay USD 1.73 bln in compensation to VimpelCom for lost opportunity on the Ukrainian mobile market.