Zain Group has confirmed that it is facing a US$4.5 billion lawsuit that stems from its 2007 acquisition of an Iraqi mobile network operator in 2007.

In a statement, Zain confirmed that it had received the lawsuit last August from Korek Telecom, which alleges that Zain’s purchase of Iraqna in 2007 blocked its own rival offer.

Back in 2007, Zain bought Iraqna for US$1.2 billion from Orascom Telecom after the Egyptian telco lost out in the auction to renew its mobile license.

Zain has been providing mobile telephony in Iraq since December 2003 (previously under the name of MTC-Atheer). In August 2007, the company acquired a 15-year nationwide licence for US$1.25 billion, followed by the acquisition of Iraqna.

In January 2008 Zain Group merged Atheer with Iraqna under the new brand name Zain.

As a consequence of the new lawsuit, an Iraqi court has ruled that that revenues from the Iraqna part of the merged company be put into a holding account and not released pending the outcome of the lawsuit.

"Zain Iraq believes its position in the case is strong as the claimant company has failed until now to produce any evidence to back its claim," Zain said in the statement.

Zain also noted that Korek Telecom is also suing the Iraqi government for a further US$1 billion.

Zain Group reported adding 2.1 million net additions over the last twelve months to end-March to serve 46.2 million customers at the end of the period, reflecting a five per cent growth rate year-on-year. The operator remains market leader in six of its eight markets of operation by customer numbers.

Consolidated revenues for Q1 2014 amounted to US$1.1 billion (KD 311.1 million) up 4% when compared to the same period in 2013. EBITDA for the quarter reached US$469 million, up four per cent year-on-year. Net income for the quarter amounted to US$198.4 million, reflecting an eight per cent increase year-on-year.

African towers operator IHS Holding says that it has raised an additional US$130 million from investors.

The capital raised is in addition to the US$490 million of debt and equity announced in March and is with existing investors.

IHS said that it will use the funds to accelerate its plans for expansion into new and existing markets.

The company has now raised more over US$1.6 billion from investors over the past year as it buys up tower assets from mobile networks across the continent.

One of its main backers is South Africa based Wendel which said in a statement that it had pumped US$47 million into the company in its latest funding round, taking the investment company’s stake in IHS to US$475 million.

Following this transaction, Wendel remains IHS’s largest shareholder with more than 35% of the capital of the company.

VimpelCom has settled the long-running dispute over the ownership of the Algerian mobile network it acquired when it bought Naguib Sawiris’ Orascom Telecom in 2010 in a US$6 billion deal.

That deal was modified to take into account the difficulty of the situation in Algeria, where the government was seeking to nationalise Orascom’s local subsidiary, Djezzy in a tax dispute.

The matter has finally been resolved.

As a result, Djezzy will be allowed to make a long delayed dividend payment to its Egyptian owners, Global Telecom Holding (formerly Orascom Telecom) of US$1.86 billion.

GTH will then sell a 51 per cent stake in the Algerian mobile network, Djezzy to the Algerian government for US$2.64 billion.

The total dividends and proceeds due to GTH at closing are expected to amount to US$4 billion, net of all taxes and after the settlement of all outstanding disputes between the parties and the payment of associated fines.

That is approximately what VimpelCom had always asked for, as it had previously indicated that it would not accept a valuation of less than US$7.8 billion for the entire company.

All proceeds will be used to pay down the outstanding shareholder loans provided by VimpelCom to GTH.

Although the Algerian government will own a majority stake in Djezzy, it will continue to be managed by GTH and, as a result, both GTH and VimpelCom will continue to fully consolidate Djezzy in their financial accounts.

Jordan is expected to have in place its first LTE network by the end of this year after Zain was awarded the necessary licence.

Zain Jordan was the sole qualified bidder in the controversial 4G licence tender, and paid JD142 million (US$200 million) for the licence, and a further JD50 million for additional 3G radio spectrum.

"Zain Jordan has about eight to nine months to launch the service commercially in the kingdom," ICT minister Azzam Sleit said.

Two new entrants applied for 4G licences, but were rejected on technical grounds, while the other two incumbent network operators – Orange and Umniah – declined to bid. There has been controversy over the licence conditions and the networks had opposed the issuance of the licences as premature.

The tender for the 4G licences was announced last June, with bids due by last October. The results were expected in January, but were delayed.

The two remaining network operators can still apply for licenses at a later date.