{"id":114620,"date":"2016-02-28T09:24:21","date_gmt":"2016-02-28T07:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=114620"},"modified":"2016-02-28T09:24:21","modified_gmt":"2016-02-28T07:24:21","slug":"high-court-rules-against-vodacoms-claim-for-neotel-licences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/114620\/high-court-rules-against-vodacoms-claim-for-neotel-licences\/","title":{"rendered":"High Court rules against Vodacom&#8217;s claim for Neotel licences"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><del><\/del>Vodacom will not be able to take control of licences owned by Neotel as part of the companies\u2019 planned\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/149443-vodacom-neotel-merger-moves-ahead.html\">R7-billion merger<\/a><\/strong>. This is according to a report by <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2016-02-26\/vodacom-purchase-of-neotel-licenses-ruled-against-by-high-court\" target=\"_blank\">Bloomberg<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The High Court in Pretoria made the ruling this week, which\u00a0follows a decision by Vodacom in December to <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/148941-vodacom-drops-plans-to-take-neotels-spectrum.html\">drop plans to take Neotel\u2019s spectrum<\/a><\/strong> and\u00a0electronic communications network services permits.<\/p>\n<p>The mobile operator will still acquire all assets relating to\u00a0Neotel\u2019s fixed-line business.<\/p>\n<p>However, the group will still gain access to Neotel\u2019s spectrum through a roaming arrangement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe merger deal as originally conceived between Vodacom and Neotel is definitely dead in the water now,\u201d telecommunications attorney Dominic Cull told the Sunday Times.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf Vodacom had to go back to try and reapply for the licences it would take forever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Vodacom originally agreed to buy Neotel from Tata Communications in May 2014. The deal was slowed down by competition inquiries, while\u00a0Telkom and MTN appealed against the merger.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0court decision was in response to an appeal by MTN, Telkom, and Cell C against a ruling by\u00a0Icasa to give Vodacom control of the licences, stated the Sunday Times.<\/p>\n<p>The deal has also been hampered by Neotel\u2019s CEO Sunil Joshi and chief financial officer Steven Whiley stepping down, after the pair\u00a0were placed on special leave following\u00a0R100 million in questionable payments to a company called Homix.<\/p>\n<p><em>The full report is in the Sunday Times of 28 February 2016.<\/em><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on Vodacom and Neotel<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/77217\/vodacom-neotel-deal-back-in-the-spotlight\/\">Vodacom Neotel deal back in the spotlight<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"MTN raises concern over Vodacom-Neotel deal\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/73446\/mtn-raises-concern-over-vodacom-neotel-deal\/\"><strong>\u00a0MTN raises concern over Vodacom-Neotel deal<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Neotel spectrum belongs to the state\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/47494\/neotel-spectrum-belongs-to-the-state\/\"><strong>Neotel spectrum belongs to the state<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Cell C will oppose Vodacom Neotel deal\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/58027\/cell-c-will-oppose-vodacom-neotel-deal\/\"><strong>Cell C will oppose Vodacom Neotel deal<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vodacom will not be able to take control of licences owned by Neotel as part of the companies\u2019 planned R7-billion merger. This is according to a report by Bloomberg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":43700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[25,261,27],"class_list":["post-114620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-active","tag-neotel","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114620"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114624,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114620\/revisions\/114624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}