The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act Complaint was originally designed to fight organized crime in the United States, but Vivendi has filed a complaint using this act in a federal court in the State of Washington.
It said that T-Mobile has illegally appropriated Vivendi’s $2.5bn investment in one of Poland’s leading mobile telecommunications operators, Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa sp. zo.o. through a pattern of fraud and racketeering.
Deutsche Telekom finally acquired a 48% stake in PTC last month, from the Polish utility Elektrim SA. It now owns a 97% stake in the Polish operator, which was 10 million customers. Vivendi contends that Elektrim had no right to sell the 48% stake, as the stake belonged to another company in which both Elektrim and Vivendi have a holding.
This case has been dragging on for a while now. As far back September 2003, Deutsche Telekom has been trying to secure full control over Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa as part of the German’s carrier’s expansion into the Eastern European. Poland is also one of the most populous states in Eastern Europe, with a relatively unsaturated market.
However, Vivendi has always insisted that it has invested $2.5bn in PTC, and a number of lawsuits have been filed in Poland and Austria. Both sides claimed a partial victory in June this year when the Vienna Court of Appeals issued a ruling
Following that ruling, Elektrim promptly sold its stake to DT. However, Vivendi filed criminal complaint earlier this month in Poland, and then followed this up with the racketeering lawsuit in the US federal court.
Vivendi justified going to the United States to file the compliant, saying that the boss of Elektrim, namely Zygmunt Solorz-Zak, colluded with T-Mobile USA in a pattern of racketeering activity over US wires as part of an unlawful scheme to take over an enterprise, PTC, and corrupt another enterprise, Elektrim.
Vivendi considers that T-Mobile and Mr. Solorz’ Elektrim illegally appropriated its $2.5bn investment in PTC and, at every turn, have defied court orders, said the chairman of the management of board of Vivendi, Jean-Bernard Levy, in a statement. By filing this Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act complaint, Vivendi asks the court for a simple remedy: give us back our money or our PTC shares. Fairness and justice must prevail.
There was no immediate official response from DT, although a company spokesperson told The Associated Press: In the past, we have been confronted with absurd and nonsensical accusations by Vivendi that are far removed from reality.
