Swedish incumbent telco TeliaSonera is prepared to exit its Uzbekistan operations if an external review gives grounds to the bribery allegations it is facing in the country.
Addressing a press conference this morning, CEO Lars Nyberg said he was…
Swedish incumbent telco TeliaSonera is prepared to exit its Uzbekistan operations if an external review gives grounds to the bribery allegations it is facing in the country.
Addressing a press conference this morning, CEO Lars Nyberg said he was convinced TeliaSonera did not bribe anyone or participate in money laundering in order to obtain its Uzbekistan telecoms assets.
These allegations were made yesterday in a Swedish current affairs programme, called Uppdrag gransking, which looked into a 2007 deal TeliaSonera secured with Gibraltar-based Takilant for a 3G licence.
Nyberg said the allegations within this programme were of such a serious nature that he planned to initiate an external review into the deal, with the results being ready before the end of the year.
He said: “When you look at this deal which was decided upon five years ago, you could ask yourself the question, would we have done it differently today? Maybe.
“In any case, we would have done a considerably more in depth and critical risk analysis before making the decision. To give you a recent example, two years ago we looked into establishing ourselves in Burma, but came to the conclusion that the risks were too high.
“A lot of positive developments have occurred in the country since then, so the question will certainly arise again. Then we will carry out a new analysis of the risks and opportunities involved.”
TeliaSonera operates in Uzbekistan under its Ucell brand, which Nyberg said has around nine million subscribers.
