{"id":8867,"date":"2012-04-02T07:44:19","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T05:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=8867"},"modified":"2012-04-02T11:24:52","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T09:24:52","slug":"former-mtn-ceo-denies-iran-bribery-accusations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/8867\/former-mtn-ceo-denies-iran-bribery-accusations\/","title":{"rendered":"Former MTN CEO denies Iran bribery accusations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The former chief executive of <a title=\"MTN Group (MTN)\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1640-MTN-Group\">MTN Group<\/a> denied on Sunday (1 April 2012) that he authorized bribes to Iranian and South African government officials in return for a cellular license in Iran.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I can state quite categorically that during my tenure as group CEO of MTN no bribes were authorized or paid by the MTN Group to any South African or Iranian government officials to secure the mobile license in Iran,&#8221; <a title=\"Phuthuma Nhleko\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1644-Phuthuma-Nhleko\">Phuthuma Nhleko<\/a> said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Turkish mobile operator <a title=\"Turkcell\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/forum\/showthread.php\/1645-Turkcell\">Turkcell<\/a> this week filed a $4.2 billion lawsuit against MTN, accusing it of using bribery and other corrupt acts to win its license in Iran in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>Nhleko, who was then the CEO of MTN, is named in the suit, as well as its current CEO, who was then the chief operating officer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"MyBroadband Article\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business\/46822-mtns-cash-weapons-and-ties-in-iran.html\"><strong>MTN\u2019s cash, weapons and ties in Iran<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/7642\/mtnturkcell-talks-break-down-amid-extortion-claims\/\">MTN\/Turkcell talks break down amid extortion claims<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/7398\/mtn-mum-on-irancell\/\">MTN mum on Irancell<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/7252\/mtn-shares-off-as-investors-await-turkcell-clarity\/\">MTN shares off as investors await Turkcell clarity<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The former chief executive of MTN Group denied on Sunday (1 April 2012) that he authorized bribes to Iranian and South African government officials in return for a cellular license in Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[26,1122,28,2181,1292],"class_list":["post-8867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-headline","tag-iran","tag-mtn","tag-phuthuma-nhleko","tag-turkcell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8867","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8867"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8869,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8867\/revisions\/8869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}