Processing .....please wait.. 
The article has been forwarded.... 
Arbitration to settle Aircel dispute
By siliconindia
|
Saturday, 19 July 2008, 03:53 IST
Mumbai: The dispute between Maxis Communication and serial entrepreneur C Sivasankaran over the stake purchase of the telecom company, Aircel, is going to be resolved by arbitration, reported The Economic Times.
Maxis is a Malaysian based telecom operator which had deal with Sivasankaran's venture concern and has violated the rules which two parties agreed for the purchase of Aircel stake. The arbitration over the issue is expected to happen within four to five weeks.
Earlier, Siva ventures, the original stake holders of Aircel, had filed a petition before Madras High court seeking to restrain Maxis from selling equity in Aircel to any third party. As aresukt Maxis had given an undertaking to the court that it will not sell the stake to any party across the world. Sivasankaran had sold his stake in Aircel to Maxis at an enterprise value of $1.08 billion in January 2006. In April this year, AT&T, an U.S based telephone service provider, approached Maxis for a possible stake purchase in Aircel, which has 12 million subscribers across 10 circles in India with around 40percent market share. Maxis was learnt to be negotiating sale. This was said to be against the agreement entered into at the time of the Sivasankaran-Maxis deal.
Maxis has an overall equity interest of 75 percent in Aircel, in which 65pecent of stake is direct and the rest is with a venture deal with Reddy family of the Appolo Group.
Sources said that the arbitration will take place at the Singapore and both parties will appoint their arbitrators, who will in turn appoint a third arbitrator. The three arbitrators will resolve the matter.
Arbitration is a technique to resolve the dispute outside the court. It not only the case of Aircel, but also companies such as BPL Mobile and Idea cellular are locked in arbitration with other groups.
