Legality of Mfone subscriber transfer questioned?

An agreement signed last month for the transfer of Mfone’s mobile subscribers to rival CamGSM (Mobitel) could be in violation of an injunction to freeze the struggling operator’s assets. According to a report by the Phnom Penh Post, Huawei Technologies is waiting for a court to rule on the legality of the transaction, after a lawyer for the Chinese firm filed a letter late last month with the Phnom Penh Municipal Court stating that the subscriber transfer agreement may violate an injunction to freeze Mfone’s assets of equal value to the amount owed to Huawei, reportedly around USD65 million. CommsUpdate reported last month that Shenington Investments, a subsidiary of Thai satellite operator Thaicom, failed to complete the sale of all of its shares in Mfone (equivalent to a 100% stake) to local investor INT Management Service (INT). The sale fell through after a number of conditions pertaining to Mfone’s debt restructuring with creditors failed to be completed within the deadline; Mfone subsequently filed for insolvency proceedings in Phnom Penh.