Moscow, Russia – March 2, 2012 – Sistema JSFC (“Sistema”) (LSE: SSA), the largest diversified public financial corporation in Russia and the CIS, announces that its Indian subsidiary Sistema Shyam TeleServices Limited (SSTL) has filed a review petition before the Indian Supreme Court seeking to overturn the judgment issued by the court on February 2, 2012, revoking 21 telecom licenses granted to SSTL in 2008.
Sistema and SSTL strongly believe that the Supreme Court in its judgment has not considered several relevant submissions made by SSTL which were specific and unique to its case. SSTL also filed a petition seeking to stay the cancellation of the licenses while the review petition is pending.
Sistema believes that Sistema and SSTL are being unfairly penalised for acting in good faith and in reliance on the appropriateness of the procedures established by India’s telecommunications authorities, and is therefore prepared to pursue all available legal remedies in this matter.
Vsevolod Rozanov, President and CEO of SSTL, commented:“We believe that SSTL’s case being a CDMA operator is different, when compared to other affected mobile operators. It is pertinent to note that SSTL was the only operator to have applied for a Pan-India CDMA spectrum in 2008. There is no finding or suggestion by the CAG report that CDMA spectrum was equally or anywhere near in demand as GSM. Even now, our company continues to be the only pure play CDMA operator in the country. In light of our commitment to continue our Pan-Indian operations and to protect the interest of more than 15 million customers and our investments, we have filed for a review of the said judgment before the Honorable Supreme Court.”
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