Turkcell’s wholly owned subsidiary, East Asian Consortium, has filed its opposition to MTN’s application to the Constitutional Court for leave to appeal the recent Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) judgment.
The SCA’s judgment affirms the jurisdiction of South African courts to hear EAC’s claims that MTN engaged in bribery and corruption in connection with its operations in Iran.
This is the latest legal step in Turkcell’s ongoing pursuit of damages estimated at over $4,2-billion, stemming from allegations that MTN paid bribes to Iranian and South African officials to overturn a public tender awarded initially to Turkcell for a multi-billion-dollar GSM telecom license in Iran.
The parties were seeking substantial damages from MTN relating to allegations of impropriety in the award of the first private mobile telecommunications licence in Iran.
The MTN board had previously, in 2012, appointed an independent special committee to investigate the allegations, which had exonerated MTN.
The High Court had set aside Turkcell’s 2013 case against MTN on the basis that South African courts did not have jurisdiction, which judgement Turkcell appealed.
In April 2025, the SCA handed down a comprehensive judgment rejecting all of the jurisdictional objections raised by MTN, its former executives Phuthuma Nhleko and Irene Charnley, and several MTN subsidiaries. The SCA affirmed that South African courts do have jurisdiction over the matter, clearing the path for the case to proceed to trial. It does, however, uphold the High Court ruling that Iranian law is applicable to key to aspects of the dispute.
MTN has approached the Constitutional Court to appeal the SCA decision, which Turkcell is opposing.