Econet Wireless International (EWI) will find out on 1 December whether the Nigerian Federal Appeals Court will uphold its injunction against VMobile (formerly Econet Wireless Nigeria).
This is the date set by the Appeals Court on which it will hand down its decision on the injunction.
EWI spokesman Zach Wazara says the ruling was originally supposed to be announced on 11 November, but the judge stated that he had not finished putting together his judgement on the matter, and postponed the date of the decision to 1 December.
EWI is seeking the injunction in order to force VMobile to reverse all the decisions that have been taken at the company since October 2003, pending the outcome of its shareholder dispute that is to go before the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA).
Wazara says the shareholder dispute will go before the arbitrators from the PCA in Abuja, Nigeria between 31January and 4 February 2005.
"The arbitrators` decision will be final, meaning that there is no leave granted to appeal the decision, making it in effect a winner-takes-all process," says EWI`s CEO, Strive Masiyiwa.
According to him, the shareholder dispute was triggered by VMobile accepting a bid from Vodacom SA to take over the Nigerian operation, despite the fact that EWI considered itself to have preferential rights to the shares offered to Vodacom.
Although Vodacom later withdrew from Nigeria, EWI`s lawyers have argued in their papers that since the VMobile board and shareholders had already accepted the offer they are entitled to exercise their rights over the Vodacom offer.
Meanwhile, EWI has rejected claims in a media report in Nigeria that it lost its application for an injunction against VMobile to 'maintain the status quo` of the company until the shareholder dispute is resolved.
"We won that case in March and VMobile appealed to the Appeals Court. The latter court heard the matter in August and this is now the ruling we are awaiting on 1 December," says Masiyiwa.
He says the injunction is being sought by EWI in order to reverse numerous decisions and resolutions taken by VMobile in the interim.
Among the issues EWI wants to see reversed are: the decision to approve a management agreement between VMobile and Vodacom; the resolutions passed at the company AGM approving the management agreement; the appointment of a new management team, including Willem Swart as CEO; and the decision changing the name Econet Wireless Nigeria to VMobile.
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