Qatar-based Ooredoo, one of the two winning bidders for Myanmar’s hotly contested foreign telecommunications licences, has appointed Norton Rose Fulbright and Australian boutique firm Webb Henderson to assist its multi-billion dollar project in the country.
At the end of June, Ooredoo, formerly known as Qarter Telecom, won the first two licences for foreign companies to provide telecommunications services in Myanmar.
Norwegian telecom company Telenor is the other foreign licensee, which was advised by Allen and Overy in the bidding process, according to The Lawyer.
Ooredoos’ legal advice for the bid was largely done by the company’s in-house team, headed by Asia general counsel Scott Weenink, who is based in Singapore. Weenink will also oversee the legal affairs arising from the project developments.
The company has appointed Norton Rose Fulbright as the lead international counsel to support its greenfields deployment of a multi-billion dollar mobile telecoms network in Myanmar.
The firm’s team is being jointly led by IT/IP partner Gigi Cheah in Singapore and corporate partner Martyn Taylor in Sydney.
It is understood that Norton Rose Fulbright also played a support role in Ooredoo’s application process.
“The selection process was fiercely contested, attracting some 91 expressions of interest. Myanmar has huge economic potential and the rollout of advanced mobile services will have a dramatic socio-economic impact,” Taylor told The Lawyer.
Ooredoo has also instructed Sydney-based regulatory boutique Webb Henderson to provide legal and regulatory advice on strategic regulatory, corporate and commercial matters as it prepares to launch its new telecoms business in Myanmar next year.
Webb Henderson’s Sydney partners Malcolm Webb, Ara Margossian and Angus Henderson are leading the advice to Ooredoo in Myanmar. The firm has been advising the Ooredoo group in Qatar and elsewhere in the Middle East for a number of years.
Ooredoo is a leading communications company operating across the Middle East, North Africa and South East Asia. Ooredoo is listed on the Qatar Exchange, the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and the London Stock Exchange. It has a market capitalisation of over $10 billion and reported 2012 revenues of $9.3 billion. Ooredoo has approximately 91 million customers worldwide.
