"Telenor is pleased with Tuesday’s appeals court decision and believes that this case was yet another attempt by Alfa to deprive Telenor of control over its own investments by misusing flaws in the Ukrainian legal system," said Sigmund Ekhougen, Country Manager and Head of Telenor's Representative Office in Ukraine. "Alfa's activities in Ukrainian courts clearly violate recognized principles of corporate law, according to which majority shareholders have the right to exercise greater control over company management." On 10 March 2006, the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv issued a decision stating that Kyivstar's two shareholders possess equal voting rights on the company's board, despite the fact that Telenor holds 56.5 percent of Kyivstar shares, and Alfa owns the remaining 43.5 percent. In accordance with the court's decision, each shareholder – Telenor and Storm – was to receive one vote on the Kyivstar board. The shareholders therefore would have been afforded equal rights in the company regardless of the proportion of their shareholdings in Kyivstar. With Telenor's appeal pending, that decision never came into effect and has now been reversed by the Kyiv Appeals Court.