{"id":12027,"date":"2013-11-27T11:44:41","date_gmt":"2013-11-27T11:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12027"},"modified":"2013-11-27T11:44:41","modified_gmt":"2013-11-27T11:44:41","slug":"turkcell-seeking-billions-from-mtn-for-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12027","title":{"rendered":"Turkcell seeking billions from MTN for Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/mtniran.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-12028\" alt=\"mtniran\" src=\"http:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/mtniran.jpg\" width=\"283\" height=\"178\" \/><\/a>Turkish cellphone company Turkcell has opened a lawsuit in South Africa against rival telecoms company MTN Group seeking damages for losses it says it incurred in Iran.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Turkcell filed a $4.2-billion lawsuit in Washington last year alleging the Johannesburg-based cellphone giant used bribery to win a mobile licence in Iran that was first awarded to Turkcell.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It dropped the suit in May after a US Supreme Court ruling in a separate case made clear that US courts would not have jurisdiction in a matter involving two foreign firms in a dispute outside the United States.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;In a continuation of this process, Turkcell today [Wednesday] opened a lawsuit against MTN in the South Gauteng high court in Johannesburg seeking damages for losses incurred as a result of MTN&#8217;s actions,&#8221; the Turkish company said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In its US filing, Turkcell claimed MTN won the Iranian contract in 2005 by offering to use its influence in Pretoria to help Tehran obtain military hardware and sway South Africa&#8217;s votes at the International Atomic Energy Agency.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8216;Brazen orchestra of corruption&#8217;<br \/>\nBacked by a collection of alleged MTN internal documents including emails, invoices, memos and presentations, Turkcell&#8217;s lawsuit accused the South African company of a &#8220;staggeringly brazen orchestra of corruption&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">MTN rejected the Turkcell allegations and appointed a retired British judge to lead an external investigation into them. That probe dismissed the accusations as &#8220;a fabric of lies, distortions and inventions&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">An MTN spokesperson declined immediate comment. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Turkish cellphone company Turkcell has opened a lawsuit in South Africa against rival telecoms company MTN Group seeking damages for losses it says it incurred in Iran. Turkcell filed a $4.2-billion lawsuit in Washington last year alleging the Johannesburg-based cellphone giant used bribery to win a mobile licence in Iran that was first awarded to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=12027\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Turkcell seeking billions from MTN for Iran&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,4],"tags":[1722,174,4617,7618],"class_list":["post-12027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-and-finance","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-bribery","tag-iran","tag-mtn","tag-turkcell"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/mtniran.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12029,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12027\/revisions\/12029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}