JAN. 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzdunrobita, the Uzbek subsidiary of Russian mobile operator MTS, has laid-off 200 staff and filed for bankruptcy after saying it could not pay $600m of fines imposed by the authorities in Uzbekistan, media reported. Uzdunrobita and the Uzbek authorities have been involved in a dispute over taxes since July.
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(News report from Issue No. 120, published on Jan. 18 2013)
JAN. 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzdunrobita, the Uzbek subsidiary of Russian mobile operator MTS, has laid-off 200 staff and filed for bankruptcy after saying it could not pay $600m of fines imposed by the authorities in Uzbekistan, media reported. Uzdunrobita and the Uzbek authorities have been involved in a dispute over taxes since July.
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(News report from Issue No. 120, published on Jan. 18 2013)
DEC. 28 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Swedish telecoms company TeliaSonera completed a deal worth $205m to buy WiMAX cables in six Kazakh cities from Alem Communications. WiMAX infrastructure is used to create 4G coverage. The deal, announced in August, also involved buying a stake in KazTransCom, another Kazakh company.
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(News report from Issue No. 119, published on Jan. 11 2013)
JAN. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Anders Narvinger, chairman of TeliaSonera, again denied that the Swedish telecoms company had bribed the Uzbek president’s family to win a lucrative 3G operating contract. Email evidence submitted in court, media reported, suggested TeliaSonera had paid a Gibraltar- registered company linked to the Uzbek president’s daughter for the contract.
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(News report from Issue No. 119, published on Jan. 11 2013)
DEC. 12 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Prosecutors investigating a deal in 2007 by Swedish telecoms company TeliaSonera to buy a 3G licence in Uzbekistan through a Gibraltar- registered company linked to the daughter of Uzbek president Islam Karimov have interviewed two of the company’s employees, media reported. TeliaSonera has denied any wrong-doing.
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(News report from Issue No. 117, published on Dec. 14 2012)
DEC. 11 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Swedish telecoms company TeliaSonera earned $525m from the sale of its 25% stake in Kcell, Kazakhstan’s largest mobile operator, in an IPO in London. This is slightly lower than some analysts had anticipated when TeliaSonera announced the sale last month.
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(News report from Issue No. 117, published on Dec. 14 2012)
NOV. 8 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – An Uzbek court overturned a ruling ordering the state to confiscate the local assets of Russian mobile operator MTS. The surprise ruling could allow MTS’s local subsidiary, Uzdunrobita, to resume operations. Uzdunrobita stopped operations in August after prosecutors accused it of a series of tax violations.
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(News report from Issue No. 112, published on Nov. 9 2012)
NOV. 4 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kcell, Kazakhstan’s biggest mobile operator, plans to list on stock exchanges in London and Almaty by the end of 2012, media quoted sources as saying. Swedish mobile operator TeliaSonera is the main shareholder in Kcell.
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(News report from Issue No. 112, published on Nov. 9 2012)
NOV. 2 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Investigators in Moscow seized an apartment belonging to Gulnara Karimova, eldest daughter of Uzbekistan’s president, media reported. Media outlets said the seizure of Ms Karimova’s apartment, which is reportedly worth $10m, was designed to counter pressure in Uzbekistan on Russian mobile operator MTS.
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(News report from Issue No. 112, published on Nov. 9 2012)
OCT. 11 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Gulnara Karimova, the 40-year-old daughter of Uzbek president, leads a glitzy lifestyle. In September, she released a new pop song and this month she launched her own perfume.
Now, though, Ms Karimova has been indirectly linked to a money laundering investigation in Switzerland that focuses on four Uzbek nationals.
Publicly accessible documents in France, unearthed by Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyra and reported on by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, showed that on at least one occasion Ms Karimova co-signed a document for property in the south of France with Alisher Ergashev, one of two Uzbek men detained in Geneva in July by investigators.
It’s also emerged that another of the Uzbek nationals being investigated in Switzerland is Gayane Avakyan, an ethnic Armenian woman closely linked to Ms Karimova.
Aside from the Swiss investigation, Ms Avakyan is also one of the main protagonists in a deal Swedish prosecutors are looking into. In the 2007/8 deal, Swedish telecoms company TeliaSonera bought an Uzbek 3G mobile licence from Gibraltar-registered Takilant. TeliaSonera has denied any wrong-doing, but Swedish prosecutors are investigating irregularities.
Both the investigations, and Ms Karimova’s glitzy lifestyle, continue.
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(News report from Issue No. 109, published on Oct. 19 2012)