Nobel laureate Yunus threatens to sue Telenor — MobileMonday Global: Industry News

^{Poor people’s phone is still Norwegian hands} Nobel laureate Yunus threatens to sue Telenor

Muhammad Yunus

7 Sep 2008 at 09:32 GMT Timo Poropudas

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has threatened to sue Norwegian telecom operator Telenor alleging they violated deals with Grameen Phone, officials said on Saturday.

"The recent activities (of Telenor-controlled management of Grameenphone, GP) in Bangladesh leave me with little alternative other than to investigate the possibility of taking legal action," Yunus, said in a statement on Friday.

According to Yunus Telenor and Grameen Telecom agreed in 1996 that the joint company should become a locally operated company within six years with majority Bangladeshi management and ownership.

"This has not happened. Telenor is unwilling to let go control of the company. We now are being told that the words of the written agreement in a legal sense are non-committing statements. We relied on the words of the agreement," Yunus complained.

Telenor, owns 62 percent shares while Yunus' Grameen Telecom, a subsidiary of Grameen Bank, holds the remaining stakes in Grameen Phone, launched in 1996.

Yunus has become world famous for launching the poor people's banking and later extending the micro credit consept to mobile phones services. He used harsh words Friday accusing Telenor of violating the deal, laundering money and breaching Bangladeshi laws in running the joint venture operations of the network.

"We cannot allow the name of Grameen to be tarnished directly or indirectly by inappropriate operations," ]Yunus said in the statement](http://www.itnewsonline.com/showprnstory.php?storyid=9737).

Telenor answered Yunus’s press release with its own. About the meeting in Oslo on 5th September 2008 Telenor said:

“Telenor has in the past three weeks initiated two meetings in Dhaka with Yunus and it was our impression that we had established a positive and constructive dialogue. Consequently, we had positive expectations ahead of the meeting in Oslo yesterday. When we concluded the meeting it was our impression that it had been a constructive meeting and we were looking forward to continuing an even closer cooperation in the future. Consequently, we were very surprised to learn of the content of the press release that Yunus issued later that evening. In Telenor's opinion, it would have been reasonable to expect Professor Yunus to mention these accusations during our meeting earlier that day, particularly as the release of this statement had apparently already been planned prior to our meeting.”