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18 March 2013

Supreme Court of Appeal rules in Telkom’s favour

The matter between ZTE Mzansi and Telkom was concluded today in favour of Telkom.

Telkom’s Procurement Policy and process of applying it was upheld when the Supreme Court of Appeal today set aside the North Gauteng High Court’s interim interdict against the Company. The appeal was upheld with costs.

In March 2012, Telkom was interdicted from implementing the tender for Multi Services Access Node (“MSAN”) provision and concluding any service level agreement with the successful bidders. This was pending the outcome of an arbitration between Telkom and ZTE Mzansi.

Telkom Group CEO Nombulelo Moholi says: “We had no doubt that Telkom’s Procurement Policy and Procedures would not be found wanting. Telkom is pleased that the deployment of the MSAN and the rollout of the higher speed broadband project has overcome a potential obstacle and can now continue unabated.”

During July 2011, Telkom published a tender (RFP 0328/2011) for the provision of MSANs. ZTE Mzansi had submitted a bid but was not shortlisted because it failed to meet certain critical technical criteria during the evaluation process.

Telkom awarded the RFP to Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent Technologies on 21 November 2011, after having followed a fair, open, transparent and competitive procurement process, which was also validated by external auditors. Telkom upholds the highest standard of governance in its procurement processes.

During January 2012, ZTE served an application upon Telkom seeking to restrain the Company from implementing the tender in terms of an interim interdict. Telkom and Alcatel–Lucent opposed the application.

In May 2012, the North Gauteng High Court granted Telkom leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal against the interdict. The Supreme Court of Appeal held that it would be an unbusinesslike construction and absurd if Telkom was obliged to resolve disputes with multiple bidders by arbitration with varying awards before it could safely implement an award. In addition the Court confirmed that no contractual relationship is created when a bidder submits a tender in response to an invitation by Telkom to do so .

The MSAN units delivered the long-awaited higher speed broadband and fibre to the curb and/or premises. Telkom on 4 March launched DSL up to 20Mbps and DSL up to 40Mpbs options to the market.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Pynee Chetty

Senior Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel:+27 12 642 1716

Mobile: +27 81 389 7874

Email: chettpr2@telkom.co.za

OR

Leigh-Ann Francis

Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel: +27 12 642 1728

Mobile: +27 81 391 4780

Email: francilm@telkom.co.za

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ABOUT TELKOM:

Telkom is a leading communications services provider in South Africa. We had consolidated operating revenue of R16.8 billion and normalised profit after tax of R1, 683 million for the period ended 30 September 2015. Total assets amounted to R41.9 billion and equity attributable to the owners of Telkom to R23.5 billion as of 30 September 2015. The group generated normalised free cash flow of R1.4 billion for the period ended 30 September 2015.

As of 30 September 2015, we had approximately 3.3 million telephone access lines in service and 1,030,441 ports connected via MSAN access. We offer business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:

  • fixed-line retail voice services using PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines, including ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines, and the sale of subscription based value-added voice services and calling plans;
  • fixed-line customer premises equipment rental and sales services both voice and data needs and these include PABX, Computers, Routers, Modems, Telephone handsets and other ancillary equipment;
  • interconnection services, including terminating and transiting traffic from South African mobile operators, as well as from international operators and transiting traffic from mobile to international destinations;
  • fixed-line data services, including domestic and international data transmission services, such as point-to-point leased lines, ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) services, packet-based services, managed data networking services and internet access and related information technology services;
  • Data Centre Operations includes e-commerce, application service provider, hosting, data storage, e-mail and security services;
  • W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), a 3G next generation network, including fixed voice services, data services and nomadic voice services;
  • mobile communication services, including voice services, data services and handset sales through our mobile navbar-brand called Telkom Mobile;
  •  information and communication services including cloud services, infrastructure services, workspace services, global service integration management and hardware and network equipment sales locally, in seven African countries, the UK and Dubai through Business Connexion Group; and
  • other services including directory services, through Trudon (Pty) Ltd, wireless data services, through Swiftnet (Pty) Ltd.

Convergence is one of our key strategic initiatives in building a sustainable future for Telkom.  We will lead the provision of converged services in South Africa in support of our mission statement: Seamlessly connecting people to a better life.