Bell Atlantic Corp is crying foul over the sale of 60% of the northern half of Argentina’s Empresa Nacional de Telecommunicacciones SA to the consortium led by Stet SpA of Italy (CI No 1,552), claiming that there were a lot of irregularities in the sale of both halves of the company – in particular that it could have come up with the money if it had had the extra time and new terms granted the Stet-France Telecom consortium and suggesting it might take legal action: its consortium originally won the bidding for the northern half, but was unable to meet the requirements to syndicate Argentinian debt; the new owners plan to name the northern half Telecom Argentina SA, the southern Telefonica Argentina SA.
