VimpelCom to cancel licences in Far East

2009-11-18

The Federal Supervision Service in the Sphere of Communication, IT and Mass Communication (Roskomnadzor) has ordered VimpelCom to cancel 25 GSM licences in the Far East and the Urals, according to Vedomosti.
The Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the Arbitration Court in Moscow, which ruled the tenders for GSM licences in the Far East and the Urals invalid and decided to annul the results.
VimpelCom and the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) disputed the results of the tenders after their results were summarised in the summer of 2007. Thirteen of the 25 allocations were won by Summa Telecom, while VimpelCom obtained only licences in Magadan, the Jewish Autonomous Region, and the Koryak Autonomous Area.
FAS considered the tenders to have been staged with “grave breaches”, and the courts claimed the same. Summa Telecom intends to file an appeal. According to its CEO Ivan Prokop, cited by Vedomosti, licences may only be cancelled in case of defaults on licensing conditions.