Vodafone given time till March 12 to reply to Indian tax dept
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Vodafone Group Plc has been given time until March 12 to respond to the second attempt of the Indian tax department to examine if its acquisition of Hutchison Essar Ltd falls within the tax jurisdiction of Indian authorities.
The dispute arose after $11.2 billion (Rs51,500 crore) was paid by Vodafone for a 67% stake in Hutchison Essar (since renamed Vodafone Essar Ltd) in 2007 and the deal was approved by the government in May the same year.
According to the tax department, the Cayman Islands transaction was essentially a transfer of an Indian asset and Vodafone should have deducted tax at source when it paid Hutchison.
Consequently, in 2007 itself a show- cause notice was slapped on the company by the tax department asking why it had not done this and it was after this that the company approached the courts.
Asia-Cell threatened with closure
Telegeography writes…Asia-Cell, the Iraqi mobile operator part-owned by Kuwait’s Wataniya Telecom (NMTC), is under threat of having its network shut down by a court, according to a statement from Wataniya’s majority owner, Qatar Telecom, yesterday. Referring to the cellco’s incorporated headquarters in the Cayman Islands, Qtel said in a statement given to the Doha stock exchange: ‘A petition to liquidate Asia-Cell Cayman…had recently been filed in the Cayman Island courts by Asia-Cell Cayman’s majority shareholder.’ The statement gave no reason for the petition. Qtel spokesman Adel al-Mutawa played down the potential impact on its business, saying that ‘Asia-Cell will not contribute a material part of the business. You should anticipate healthy double-digit growth in both Q1 and for the full-year.’ Asked by reporters if Qtel would consider buying a majority stake in Asia-Cell, he replied that ‘Qtel is reviewing its options,’ whilst a spokeswoman for Wataniya International declined to comment on the matter. According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database, Asia-Cell is 51%-owned by Iraqi-Kurdish company Asia-Cell Telecommunications, with National Mobile Telecommunications Company (operating as Wataniya Telecom) holding a 40% stake, and the remaining 9% owned by Bahrain-based United Gulf Bank. Asia-Cell owns Iraq’s ‘northern’ mobile licence, covering a region extending from Dahuk on the Turkish border down to Diyala, just north of Baghdad. It had 2,544,891 GSM subscribers at the end of December 2006, all pre-paid, giving it a 26% share of the market.
