Turkcell, which postponed the Q3 results announcement to 13th November, has declared a statement about the interconnection case that resulted in a 279 million TL fine to be paid to Turk Telekom.
Turkcell has decided to postpone their Q3 results announcement which was set to be declared at midnight hours (Turkish time) in U.S.A and early morning hours in Turkey. According to some close sources to the company, the postponement decision was taken after some technical problems about the calculation of the results. Results will be declared next week.
Although Q3 results were not officially declared, some 42% decrease in revenues is highly expected according to a Reuters research carried out among 13 analysts. Reuters predicts some 1.59 billion TL revenues with some 353 million TL profit.
Information and Communication Technologies Authority’s (BTK) 30% discount decision in interconnection prices in April 2009 could have played an important role in the decrease in Turkcell’s revenues. Moreover, Tax Administration body recently published a warning for Turkcell stating that the firm should allocate some 258 million TL for tax covers [1].
Turkcell Appeals The Decision
On the other hand for the case against Turkcell, which was issued by Turk Telekom in 2004 about the interconnection agreement regarding the traffic terminations signed between Turkcell and Milleni.com (a German telecommunication firm), the court decided that Turkcell should pay some 279.2 million TL fine to Turk Telekom.
Right after the court’s decision, Turkcell stated that they will appeal against the decision since its illegal and irregular and they would not make any additions to the allocated cover fund which was announced as 79,8 million dollars in Q2.
According to the statement given to the Public Disclosure Platform (KAP), Turkcell reminded that the firm has allocated a total of 122,3 million TL (some 44,9 million TL capital and 77,4 million TL interest to date) as a cover fund.
In 2004 Turk Telekom, not a privatized firm then, issued a file against Turkcell claiming that its monopoly rights were violated and it was suffering from Turkcell’s contrary operations against inter-operators communication and cooperation agreements. This case was concluded in favor of Turk Telekom by an unanimous vote and Turkcell was fined to pay 279,2 Million TL to Turk Telekom.
According to Turk Telekom’s statement given to the KAP today, it was said that since Turkcell carried its foreign voice traffic over Milleni.com GmbH and gave some 450,9 million TL damage to Turk Telekom they filed a suit against Turkcell and the court decided that Turkcell has to pay a total of 279,2 million TL fine (137,7 million TL as capital and 141,5 million TL as detention fine). Company also stated that there will be additions to this fine as advance interest and detentions starting from first trial date which is 5th August 2005.
Turkcell declared a quick response to Turk Telekom via a KAP statement stating that there were no violations. Here is that response:
The International Interconnection Agreement between Turkcell and Milleni.com GmbH firms defining the transportation of our international voice traffic was signed within permission and approvals of both Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications Foundation which were the administrating bodies than.
Therefore, the mentioned agreement and the trade operations within the scale of this agreement are all legal actions and since, the court’s decision becomes both illegal and irregular. With this statement we are publicly declaring that we fully believe that we are righteous in this issue and will take all the legal actions to defend our rights starting with an appeal after the court’s decision is officially notified.
Last week Turkcell was taken under inquiry of ICTA for its tariffs and then tax administration declared that Turkcell (and the 2 other operator firms) should allocate a cover fund since they could possibly be fined for their roaming operations [1].
[1] Mobile Operators Are Undergoing a Tax Inquiry for Roaming
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