Mobinil retail outlet in Cairo (Photo: Reuters)
Egypt’s economic court imposed a LE100,000 ($14,300) fine on Egypt’s oldest mobile operator, Mobinil, for misinforming consumers about the quality of the company's services.
In a statement sent to the stock exchange, Mobinil said that it had appealed the court’s decision and was confident in its legal position.
"The company appealed the court decision right after its issuance, but as it respects Egypt's judiciary, it will not discuss the decision or make any comment out of the court," the statement said.
Mobinil was referred to prosecutors by the Consumer Protection Agency (CPA) on 22 January after the company published an advertisement in the state-run newspaper Al-Akhbar a month earlier in which it claimed that it led Egypt's mobile phone service providers in terms of data and voice service quality.
According to CPA head Atef Yaacoub, the advertisement was written in a way that implied that the claims had been taken from official reports issued by Egypt's National Telecommunications Regulation Authority (NTRA), when they were actually the result of Mobinil's own calculations.
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