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Telenor serves legal notice on the president

Robi willing to withdraw cases for arbitration: telecoms minister

Staff Correspondent
Grameenphone's parent company Telenor recently sent a legal notice to President Abdul Hamid, demanding international arbitration to resolve the telecom regulator's "disputed" audit claim of Tk 12,580 crore, Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar said yesterday.
Grameenphone, however, distanced itself from the matter.
On the other hand, mobile operator Robi, from which Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) claimed Tk 867.23 crore, said it wanted to withdraw all the cases against the auditing process and sought arbitration to solve the matter, Jabbar said.
Robi had earlier filed two cases against the audit claims.
"Recently, Grameenphone [Telenor] has sent a legal notice from a Singapore-based legal consultant to the president of the country and there is no way to take it lightly," the minister said at a meeting with the Telecom
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Reporters' Network Bangladesh (TRNB) at his office.
"We have already discussed it with senior lawyers of the country and found nothing to be worried about," he added.
BTRC sources said Allen & Overy LLP, a Singapore-based international law firm, sent the legal notice to the president on October 30, referring to the business protection treaty signed by Bangladesh and Singapore.
Talking to this newspaper, Khandaker Reza-E-Raquib, legal counsel for the BTRC, said, "We discussed the notice at a court hearing on November 18. We later replied to the Allen & Overy LLP, saying there is no scope for accepting any such notice as the matter is lying with the Supreme Court."
He said the firm might have thought that serving such a notice on the president would create pressure on the government. It, however, did not make the BTRC or the telecom ministry respondent to the notice.
Contacted, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said Telenor could have served the notice on the telecom ministry or at best on the prime minister.
He, however, mentioned that there
is no legal bar on any firm in sending notices to the president.
Jabbar said Grameenphone could go for international arbitration anytime, but at the same time they needed to consider that they would have to follow the laws of Bangladesh to run their business here.
Earlier, both Grameenphone and Robi hinted that they may take up the audit issue with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes -- one of the five agencies of the World Bank Group — which settles international investment disputes.
"Our door is still open for discussion but to start a dialogue, you will have to meet at a certain point; You never want to pay anything, but want arbitration which is not possible," said Jabbar.
The minister also said they had tried to settle the matter on several occasions with the help of the finance minister and the prime minister's ICT affairs adviser, but the operators were not "serious" in doing so.
"The government proposed that they pay only Tk 250 crore - Tk 200 crore from Grameenphone and Tk 50 crore from Robi - to start the arbitration, but the irony is the court ordered the Grameenphone to pay Tk 2,000 crore
within three months."
On November 24, the Supreme Court directed Grameenphone to pay the telecom regulator Tk 2,000 crore, which is around 10 times what the carrier was willing to pay as adjustable deposit.
The telecom minister also said they had formed two arbitration committees, but the operators didn't take part in those.
“To avoid the payment, they | Grameenphone | even try to portray the process as extortion, which made headlines in newspapers," Jabbar said.
The Daily Star could not obtain a copy of the legal notice sent by Telenor. This newspaper also tried to contact Cathrine Stang Lund, communications director of Telenor Group in Asia, but could not reach her.
Meanwhile, Grameenphone yesterday issued a statement which said it was not a party to this notice.
"For Telenor Group, it is important to protect its assets in Bangladesh. Telenor has sent a notice to seek resolution of a dispute and invited the Government of Bangladesh to meet to discuss the matter and work towards a constructive solution," read the statement.
The BIT (Bilateral Investment Treaty)
process itself encourages dialogue, and Telenor still believes the best way forward is that the authorities and the operators agree on an amicable and transparent solution to the disputed audit, it said.
About Robi, Jabbar said the telecom company did not respond to the government's request for an out-of-court settlement. But now it is proposing an amicable settlement, which the government might accept.
"We were ready to accept any of their proposals. They could seek deduction of the late fees and we would consider that. Their attitude was uncooperative from the beginning," said Jabbar.
Of the BTRC's total audit claims, more than half are for late fees.
Asked yesterday about the minister's remarks, Robi declined to say anything.
Jabbar said that following the audit claims, the telecom regulator halted all kinds of service approvals for both the market operators and stopped imports of equipment, which impacted the operators' service quality.
"As a user |of the services], 1 am also a sufferer. But we have nothing to do... As soon as they clear the dues, we will remove all the bars," he said.