www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Legal action against the regulator in Saudi Arab is planned to be launched by Vodafone Qatar, which began operations as the Gulf Arab state’s second mobile operator last summer, over Virgin Mobile’s entry into the market. Richard Branson’s Virgin Mobile entered into a licensing tie-up with incumbent operator Qatar Telecom, or Qtel and got launched just 10 days ago in Qatar. Shares in the company closed up Wednesday 0.6% at QAR8.2.

According to Grahame Maher, Vodafone Qatar’s chief executive, Vodafone Qatar is happy to compete and is not threatened by Virgin Mobile’s entry into the market, but the company sees this as a change to the rules of its license.
A unit of U.K. telecoms giant Vodafone Group, Vodafone Qatar released a statement in it was made clear that it is pursuing legal action against the gas-rich state’s telecoms regulator, ictQatar, over Virgin Mobile and that it thought Virgin’s partnership with Qtel was unlicensed. Vodafone Qatar feels that its second public mobile telecommunications networks and services license conditions are violated by this move. It also violates the telecoms law in Qatar which states that no further mobile service provider would enter into the market, and be licensed, until the proposed Sector review.

After raising QAR3.38 billion ($928 million) in a 40% share sale to the public in July 2009, Vodafone Qatar got listed on the Doha bourse. The sale has been hailed as the biggest initial public offering last year in the Middle East and North Africa region.

According to Vodafone Qatar’s chairman Sheikh Abdulrahman Bin Saud Al-Thani, the company is taking legal action for the damages this has caused its shareholders and it is simply protecting their interests; 82,000 of which are individual Qataris that paid 40% of the second mobile license fee.

A net loss of QAR673.4 million for a full year 2009 has been posted by the company earlier this month.