Tiger still after Vodacom

By Candice Jones, ITWeb online telecoms editor

Johannesburg, 12 Jun 2008

The withdrawal of two members of the Tiger Consortium does not prevent it from legally challenging Vodacom's R7.5 billion black economic empowerment (BEE) deal, says consortium spokesman Jacobus van Schalkwyk.

Earlier this week, former Tiger members Yusuf Surtee and Lester Peteni issued a statement saying they were not participants in last week's court case against Vodacom.

"We are no longer members of the consortium and did not participate in the issue of a legal challenge to Vodacom. We are aware that the Tiger consortium did not proceed beyond the second stage of the BEE process and we accepted that fact," they said.

The Tiger Consortium filed an interdict with the Johannesburg High Court in an attempt to be included in Vodacom's BEE plans after it lost out on the deal. The court dismissed the case and ordered Tiger to pay the costs.

The High Court noted the dismissal was based solely on the finding of "want of urgency" and "non joinder of the National Independent Telecommunications Organisation of SA (Nitosa) and Vodacom Black Management". The latter means the two parties either did not appear, or did not join in the action.

However, despite the withdrawal of the members, Tiger is optimistic it can still pursue legal action against Vodacom. "It was the urgency of the case that was dismissed; the merit of the case is still to be heard. We still have the option of open litigation," says Van Schalkwyk.

He says the withdrawal of the consortium members does not affect this in any way. "Everything is still open and there is much that we need to discuss." The Tiger Consortium is made up of the Black Business Partners Forum and other broad-based groups.

Vodacom Group chief communications officer Dot Field stated: "The Tiger Consortium's application for an interdict against the Vodacom Group was dismissed, with costs, by the High Court, Witwatersrand Local Division on 6 June 2008. We have no further comment."

At the time of the court dismissal, Field expressed her satisfaction with the ruling. She added that the proceedings had not delayed the transaction in any way. "We can now continue with the BEE transaction as originally envisaged. We wish to reiterate that our staff and black business partners will not be prejudiced in any way."

The deal

In April, Vodacom announced that 25% of its R7.5 billion BEE shareholding would be allocated to Vodacom SA staff members.

Broad-based black members of the public, and Vodacom black business partners would have access to 30%, with the remaining 45% going to broad-based strategic partners, it said in a media statement.

Vodacom later announced Royal Bafokeng Holding and Thebe Investments as its strategic partners.