Anil's camp alleges sabotage by RIL

NEW DELHI: The war between Ambani brothers erupted again on Friday night with younger Anil's group charging Mukesh-led Reliance Industries with attempting to "sabotage" its potential multi-billion dollar deal with South African telecom giant MTN.
    
Mukesh Ambani group, however, declined to comment on allegations from the Anil's group that RIL had communicated to MTN about its claim to right of first refusal to buy controlling stake in RCOM and it was "legally and factually untenable, baseless and misconceived."
    
An RIL spokesperson said "no comments" when asked about the issues raised by Anil Ambani group.
     
Asserting that the new combined entity would have operating profits of Rs 50,000 crore, much higher than the Mukesh Ambani's group, RCOM official alleged that "RIL is seeking to disrupt the creation of one of the world's most valuable telecoms combinations."
     
Claiming that RIL's communication to MTN was based on a 'unilateral' agreement of January 12, 2006 signed by RIL officials, ADAG said that the agreement for effecting the family settlement was held "unfair and unjust" by the Bombay High Court later that year.
     
RCOM officials, however, exuded confidence that RIL's attempt would not delay the negotiations on the deal that is believed to be in the region of over 70 billion dollars where Anil Ambani could be Chairman of the combined entity with single largest shareholding.
     
He, however, did not take questions on present status of the negotiations for which RCOM had entered into exclusive negotiations with MTN group on May 26 for a period of 45 days.
    
Meanwhile, reports from Johannesburg quoted an MTN spokesperson as saying "as far as we are concerned nothing has changed... we (RCOM and MTN) are continuing talks."
     
ADAG group said that "last night, in a mala fide effort to disrupt the talks (with MTN), RIL, part of Mukesh Ambani group, has sent a communication to MTN Group, making a false claim of an alleged right of first refusal to buy the controlling stake in Reliance Communications Ltd."
     
Terming it as legally and factually baseless, the spokesperson said that "RIL's claim is borne out of mounting despair and frustration at Reliance ADA Group's continuing successes, and the support it enjoys from over 10 million investors, the world's largest shareholding family."
     
"Reliance Communications dismisses RIL's claim with the contempt it deserves," the official said.
      
According to him, the new entity from the deal between R-Com and MTN would have have 120 million subscribers.
      
The official said that RIL has based its claim on an agreement of January 12, 2006, which was "unilaterally" signed by RIL's officials when RCom was under the RIL control.
      
However, this "procedure" was held to be "unfair and unjust" by the Bombay High Court on October 15, 2006, the ADAG spokesman said.
      
RCom got into the negotiations with South African giant MTN for a potential deal on May 26, aimed at creating one of the world's 10 largest telecom companies, with a potential size of about 70 billion dollars.
      
Before RCom took a plunge, MTN and Bharti Airtel were in talks, which did not fructify.