An Egyptian court Saturday has upheld a verdict that prevents France Telecom SA from gaining full control of the Egyptian Co. for Mobile Services, allowing Orascom Telecom Holding SAE to keep its stake in the Egyptian company. France Telecom's offer to buy the outstanding shares in the Egyptian Co. at 245 Egyptian pounds ($44.4) per share is unfair to minority shareholders, Hamdi Yassin, the presiding judge in the case, said in an interview after Saturday's ruling. That's because France Telecom's $2.2 billion bid for the outstanding shares of the Egyptian Co., also known as Mobinil, is 28 pounds less per share than an offer made to Orascom Telecom Holding SAE in an arbitration ruling last year in the French company's favor, he said. Mobinil is Egypt's biggest mobile phone company by number of subscribers. France Telecom was told by regulators in April that it had to bid for the outstanding shares in Egyptian Co. to implement the arbitration ruling to buy Orascom's stake in Mobinil Telecom for the equivalent of 273 Egyptian pounds a share, or justify offering a lower price. The authority rejected three previous offers from the French company before accepting its latest bid. "France Telecom can appeal to a higher administrative court in the next 60 days," Yassin said today. France Telecom's offer to take full control of Mobinil has been opposed by Orascom, which wants to stop the French company buying its stake. Orascom, the biggest cellular company in the Middle East by users, directly owns 20 per cent of the Cairo- based mobile operator, and also has 29 per cent in Mobinil Telecom, a holding company that owns 51 percent of Mobinil. France Telecom's justification for offering a lower price was chiefly that Mobinil Telecom shares were more expensive because of undistributed dividends and management fees paid by the Egyptian Co. The court that overruled the regulatory decision on Jan. 13 said this reasoning had no legal basis. The ruling in January was fast-tracked because the French company's offer was set to expire the next day.
