“Altimo, through Storm and other Alfa Group affiliates, has, over the past 14 months, commenced eight separate legal actions in Ukraine in an effort to undermine Telenor's rights as the owner of a controlling stake in Kyivstar and take control of Kyivstar without paying for it,” said Jan Edvard Thygesen, Telenor Executive Vice President and Head of Central and Eastern Europe. “These actions were commenced in various courts throughout Ukraine, in violation of Alfa’s express agreement that all disputes concerning the Kyivstar Shareholders Agreement and related matters will be subject to arbitration in New York under the UNCITRAL Rules. A number of the so-called “decisions” in these cases were taken without Telenor being given prior notice of hearings or having the opportunity to appear. Other aspects of these cases are highly irregular, which suggests that some of the Ukrainian courts involved may have been the subject of improper external influence. However, at the end of the day, all that really matters is Telenor’s ongoing arbitration proceeding in New York against Alfa’s subsidiary Storm.”

“In a last-ditch effort to avoid its obligations, Alfa is now claiming that one of its executives did not have authority to sign an agreement to which Storm is a party,” said Thygesen. “Various financial institutions made similar claims following the Russian financial crisis in 1998, and generally were unsuccessful. Telenor will continue to pursue its arbitration proceeding against Storm in New York and expects to prevail.”

Altimo is the owner of Storm LLC, which has a 43.5% minority stake in Ukrainian mobile operator CJSC Kyivstar G.S.M., in which Telenor owns a controlling 56.5% stake.