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To: S100 who wrote (73532)	6/8/2000 12:59:00 AM
From: S100	Respond to of 152472

Singapore Technologies threatens legal action against Unicom Jun 8 2000 10:28AM CHRISTINE CHAN Another foreign investor has threatened legal action against China United Telecommunications Corp (China Unicom) in a further embarrassment to the company. Singapore Government-linked Singapore Technologies said it was seeking compensation from China Unicom, the mainland's No 2 telecoms carrier, over paging joint ventures in the mainland. A source at Singapore Technologies group said yesterday it was preparing to issue a legal letter to China Unicom to "inform them that the outstanding matter from our cooperation is not resolved" and it might resort to mainland courts. The news comes a week after Hong Kong Lark Telecom said it might launch legal action over problems with its paging joint ventures with China Unicom. Since 1995, Singapore Technologies had invested "in the region of RMB300 million [about HK$279 million]" in joint ventures aimed at building paging networks in 21 mainland coastal cities under leasing arrangements, the source said. Under the deal, the Singapore company provided funds to Unicom Paging's co-operative joint ventures to build the networks in return for a share of operating revenue, the source said. The foreign partner did not operate the networks. However, since the end of last year, China Unicom had stopped paying Singapore Technologies money due under the leasing agreements, claiming Beijing had ordered the ventures to be terminated, the source said. "When we wrote to them about our concern that they had not followed the agreement we signed then we started to talk, they then informed us [the joint ventures] would be terminated," the source said. "We did not see ourselves as operating illegally because we have official approval. We are taking action in the mainland court because we have full respect for Chinese law." The source challenged whether Beijing had ordered Unicom Paging's joint ventures with its foreign partners to be wound up, although it had ordered the company to unwind its so-called China-China-Foreign (CCF) joint-venture contracts with 40 foreign partners last July. Under the CCF formula, foreign investors set up joint ventures with mainland partners which then devised other ventures with China Unicom to operate mostly mobile-phone networks. The arrangement was conceived to sidestep government regulations banning direct involvement by foreign investors in the telecoms market. "As far as [we can see from] the documents given to us, there is no clear statement from the authorities that they want to terminate the agreements, but Unicom was claiming it is a statement from the authorities," the source said. "We are not the one who wants to terminate the agreement... what we would like is to continue, but if it has to be continued in a way that is still unfair to us... then they have to compensate us in a fair manner." Copyright ¸ 2000 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All Rights Reserved chinaweb.com