MOSCOW, July 5 (RIA Novosti) - AFK Sistema (RTS: AFKS, LSE: SSA) said Wednesday it intends to seek a court ruling to uphold its ownership rights to Kyrgyz mobile phone operator Bitel.
Mobile operator MTS, owned by AFK Sistema, completed a deal to acquire a 51% controlling stake in Tarino Limited for $150 million in December 2005. In turn, Tarino Limited purchased three offshore companies that claimed rights to Bitel.
MTS concluded the deal through its Luxembourg-based subsidiary, Mobile TeleSystems Finance S.A.
But another company, Reservspetsmet, said it had struck a deal to purchase Bitel from Fellowes, controlled by the telecom arm of Russia's Alfa Group, in May 2005.
In December 2005, the Supreme Court of Kyrgyzstan passed a ruling on denying MTS its rights to a controlling stake in Bitel.
Bitel is the republic's sole company operating on the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) standard. The company controls 87% of the Kyrgyz cell phone market and has about 470,000 subscribers.
