Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / NewStats: 3,195,589 members, 7,958,820 topics. Date: Thursday, 26 September 2024 at 03:27 AM |
Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Business / Etisalat Battles MTN Over Promo (597 Views)
Cameroon Slams MTN Over Tax Evasion / NCC Files Criminal Charges Against MTN Over Alleged Copyright Infringement / NCC Files Criminal Charges Against MTN Over Alleged Copyright Infringement (2) (3) (4)
(1) (Reply)
Etisalat Battles MTN Over Promo by manistain(m): 12:18pm On Aug 04, 2015 |
A Federal High Court in Lagos on Monday struck out
an application by telecommunication company,
MTN, seeking a long adjournment in the suit filed
against it by its competitor, Etisalat.
Etisalat had headed for the court over an allegation
that the Nigerian Communications Commission was
giving MTN market advantage over it.
The plaintiff is aggrieved with the MTN’s “Family
and Friends” promo, which offers a call rate of 11
kobo per second to eight MTN subscribers and two
non-MTN subscribers.
Etisalat argued that MTN’s “Family and Friends”
promo was launched in violation of NCC’s
regulation, adding that the promo package was
restricting outgoing call traffic to smaller operators
“by pricing on-net tariffs lower so as to make off-net
calls unattractive.”
Etisalat said MTN was posing a threat to its business
survival, adding that if the court did not urgently hear
the suit, its business was liable to being eroded
within a very short time.
Subsequently, Justice Mohammed Idris had, on July
21, granted the application seeking an urgent
hearing of the suit during the court’s long vacation.
But at the resumed hearing on Monday, counsel for
MTN, Olasupo Sasore (SAN), appeared in court with
an application contesting the urgency claimed by
Etisalat.
Sasore argued that contrary to the claim by the
plaintiff, there was nothing urgent in the matter to
warrant it being heard during the court’s vacation.
However, counsel for Etisalat, Kola Awodein (SAN),
told the court that though Sasore only served him
with a copy of the application in the evening of last
week Friday, he had already filed his reply.
Awodein also said that the lawyer representing NCC
in the matter, Prof. Taiwo Osipitan (SAN), had
pleaded with him that he was just briefed and he
would need time to study the file.
According to him, all the parties had agreed to come
back to court on September 25, 2015.
Following this development, the judge,
consequently, struck out MTN’s application and
adjourned till September 25, 2015 for further
hearing.
Etisalat, in the main suit, is seeking a review of a
decision said to be recently taken by NCC allowing
30 per cent differential between MTN’s off-net and
on-net retail mobile voice tariffs.
According to Etisalat, with the said 30 per cent
differential between its off-net and on-net retail
mobile voice tariffs, MTN had been able to create
what is called a “calling club,” an example of which
is its “Family and Friends” promo.
Copyright PUNCH. |
(1) (Reply)
First Bank Nigeria H1 2015: Best Prepared Bank For The Tough Times Ahead / How Capitalism Will End In Nigeria / Earn As You Learn
(Go Up)
Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 8 |