The New York State Supreme Court has a greed to hear the case involving Russian telecom contractor Whale Telecom in a $400 million breach-of-contract lawsuit against Qualcomm Inc. over plans to dissolve Metrosvyaz, the CDMA player’s partner in Cyprus.
Whale filed the lawsuit Nov. 15.
Whale said it also filed two arbitration actions against Metrosvyaz seeking “tens of millions of dollars in damages for breach of contract.”
As a creditor in Metrosvyaz, the contractor said it does not want the Qualcomm partner to be dissolved because it has not received shareholder approval.
The story is woven in threads that involve another company, Alfa Group, which bought Metrosvyaz, although that is disputed by another company Teletal, a part owner of Metrosvyaz. Teletal calls the acquisition a “quasi-partnership.”
“Documents filed by Teletal in the Cyprus proceeding describe a tale of gross mismanagement, fraud, forgery of documents, diversion of corporate funds for personal benefit, and numerous breaches of fiduciary duties in connection with the management of Metrosvyaz,” said Whale.
Teletal filings claim that Qualcomm entered complex debt-equity swap arrangements with and invested further in Metrosvyaz after U.S. wireless carrier Leap Wireless International Inc. withdrew its financial support from the company.
Whale claims that Qualcomm chose to partner with off-shore companies like Metrosvyaz because their “regulatory regimes and standards of business practices were very different from those in the U.S.”
Qualcomm did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
