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The Federal Government has confirmed
the payment of N50 billion by Mtn as part payment of the N1.04 trillion fine by
the Nigerian Communications Commission.
Confirming this to newsmen on Friday,
the Special Assistant to the Minister of Communications, Mr. Victor
Oluwadamilare, said the payment by telecom company was made with a precursor
for an out of court settlement over the matter.
The Nigerian telecom operator, MTN Nigeria had
on Wednesday announced the payment of $250 million as part of the N1.04
trillion fine imposed on it by industry regulator. It will be recalled that the
NCC had in October 2015, slammed a fine of N1.04 trillion on MTN for its
failure to deactivate over 500,000 unregistered subscribers after series of
warning had were issued by the regulator to terminate them.
The company was
originally given a fine of $5.2 billion in October, 2015, and after weeks of
lobbying by the telecom company, the fine was reduced by 25 percent ($3.9
billion). MTN Group went to court to challenge the legality of NCC to impose
such a huge fine on it but failed to argue its case to logical conclusion.
Not
satisfied, the telecom company also went further to hire a former U.S. attorney
general to help challenge the propriety of the fine. The former U.S. law
enforcement officer, Eric Holder is said to have pleaded with Nigerian
officials last month on behalf of the telecoms company without any fruitful
outcome. After hearing the case, the presiding judge in January gave the two
parties a two month period to settle out of court .
However, effort to confirm the
development from MTN spokesperson did not yield result. A judge in Lagos also
had last month gave both parties until March 18 to reach a settlement, after
MTN had asked the court to arbitrate over the dispute, saying the Nigerian
Communications Commission (NCC) had no legal grounds to order the fine.
More detail soon…
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