Vodacom listing gets go-ahead
17 May 2009 
 
The High Court in Pretoria ruled in favour of Vodacom and dismissed the application by Cosatu and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) to prevent its listing on the JSE on 18 May 2009.

Cosatu and Icasa applied for an urgent interdict to stop the listing.  Vodacom and a legal team representing Vodafone, Telkom and the South African government challenged the application in the Pretoria High Court.

The application to block Vodacom's listing followed Icasa rescinding on its earlier decision not to intervene in the deal that sees Telkom selling 15% of its shareholding in Vodacom to UK firm Vodafone and unbundling the remaining 35% to shareholders.

Spokesperson Patrick Craven said Cosatu would continue to oppose the listing by all legal means including launching a boycott of the telecommunications giant. He said Cosatu felt that the ruling was bad news for all people in South Africa in favour of those with money.

Craven said high-court judge John Murphy had accepted initially that Cosatu and Icasa had a legitimate case. The judge said the original application to stop the deal might have succeeded because Icasa and Cosatu had a good argument but the damages done to South Africans were outweighed by the financial benefits and as such the court could not accept the application.

Earlier, government lawyer SA Celliers said in court that the Zuma administration stood by what had been agreed with Vodafone, and added that Cosatu's attempt to scupper the deal was going nowhere. "The prima facie case is not there to stop the listing," Celliers told the court. "There isn't a case to start with."

"The listing has been planned for ages and the parties involved have gone through lengthy processes in preparing for it. Many commitments have been made. So I'm glad that the listing will go ahead," said Kaplin Equity Analysts' Irnest Kaplin in response.

"On the other hand, Icasa looks very unprofessional in all of this, which is worrying. We can't be sure of its independence. If you're a foreign investor looking at this it looks terrible," he adds.

Vodacom said it a statement it welcomed the judgement. "We look forward to listing."

Cosatu and Icasa have been ordered to cover the legal costs.

Simon Dingle, www.fin24.com