Russia’s Moscow Arbitration Court has postponed the hearing of the Federal Antimonopoly Service’s (FAS) claim against Telenor’s February stake increase in VimpelCom until 27 November, although the Norwegian telco remains hopeful the matter may be…
Russia’s Moscow Arbitration Court has postponed the hearing of the Federal Antimonopoly Service’s (FAS) claim against Telenor’s February stake increase in VimpelCom until 27 November, although the Norwegian telco remains hopeful the matter may be settled out of court.
The FAS filed the claim in April and the hearing was initially set to start today (17 October), although the authority’s head, Igor Artemyev, said recently that it would seek to delay the hearing to give the parties time to reach an out-of-court agreement.
Artemyev expressed support for Telenor’s proposed solution to its long-running dispute with Russian investment firm Altimo over their stake in VimpelCom: for the parties to reach ownership parity by jointly buying Ukrainian investor Viktor Pinchuk’s 6% stake.
Commenting on the new hearing date, a Telenor spokesperson said the company could “only take note of the court’s postponement”.
“We believe that the deal to restore our share of ownership in VimpelCom does not violate Russian legislation and complies with FAS’ approval granted at the time of creation of VimpelCom Ltd.
“Telenor has never expressed any intention to control VimpelCom bypassing Russian laws.
“We are still open to an out-of-court solution of the dispute and will continue the dialog with FAS.”
Altimo declined to comment.
