For the second time in a row, MTN Nigeria has floored Etisalat Nigeria over the legal battle concerning recent acquisition of Visafone Communications by MTN.

At the resumed hearing of the matter yesterday before Justice Ibrahim Buba of the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, the court threw out the suit filed by Etisalat against MTN and Visafone over the acquisition of the CDMA operator.

Justice Buba delivered his ruling in respect of Notice of Preliminary Objection raised by MTN and Visafone challenging the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court to adjudicate on the matter.

In the ruling, the court upheld the defendants’ argument, as canvassed by Mr. Niyi Adegbonmire, SAN (MTN’s and Visafone’s Counsel) and struck out the matter on the following grounds:

· That Etisalat failed to fulfill condition precedent as required by the Nigerian Communications Act as Etisalat failed to exhaust the judicial review process as mandated by law. Specifically, the court considered Etisalat’s action as an attempt to circumvent the judicial review process.

· That Etisalat’s complaint was hinged on the administrative powers of the Nigerian Communications Commission who had already approved the transaction between MTN and Visafone and as such, both Visafone and MTN were not relevant parties to the suit.

· That the suit as filed by Etisalat, was incurably bad and could not be remedied.

· That the NCC was empowered to determine actions which constitute anti-competition and had actually informed Etisalat, in writing, that the transaction between Visafone and MTN did not lower competition in the telecommunications industry. The court found that the letter, which was also exhibited in court, was fatal to Etisalat’s case.

· The court also faulted the approach by Etisalat in instituting the action contrary to the provision of the Nigerian Communications Act.

MTN Nigeria says the N50 billion it paid to the Federal Government was part payment of the N780 billion fine imposed on it by the Nigerian Communications Commission [NCC] for failing to deactivate 5.2 million non-registered subscribers on its network.

Mr. Funso Aina, Public Relations Manager of MTN Nigeria confirmed the N50 billion as part payment on the fine in a text message response to Business Journal enquiry on the issue last night.

The telecom operator has also withdrawn the legal action it filed against the NCC at a Federal High Court in Lagos.

The CEO of MTN Nigeria, Moolman, said the telecom operator decided to withdraw the case in “renewed steps towards a negotiated settlement and to create a conducive atmosphere for further negotiations.”

The operator said in a statement: “MTN Nigeria has paid N50 billion to the Federal Government as a gesture of good faith and commitment to continued efforts towards an amicable resolution.

This is a most encouraging development. It demonstrates a willingness and sincerity by both parties to work together towards a positive outcome. Along with the authorities, it is clear that we are collectively committed to working towards a solution that is of mutual benefit to all parties.

Our industry in Nigeria is an incredibly important example of the remarkable progress in ICT, particularly as a much needed catalyst for socio economic growth and development at this time.”

According to the latest Kaspersky Lab Security Bulletin, the volume of spam emails in 2015 decreased to 55.28% of overall email traffic, a fall of 11.48% on the previous year. The significant slump in spam emails can be attributed to the increasing popularity of legal advertising platforms on social networks, coupon clipping service and etc.

Among other trends identified in the Kaspersky Lab spam report are the following. Over three quarters (79%) of all emails sent were less than 2kb, which shows a steady decrease in email size for spam campaigns over the past few years. Financial institutions such as banks, payment systems and online shops were attacked most often with phishing emails (34.33%, a rise of 5.59%).

In 2015, cybercriminals continued to send out fake emails from mobile devices and notifications from mobile apps containing malware or advertising messages. New tactics included fraudsters spreading malware in the form of .apk (Android executive files) and .jar (ZIP archives containing a programme in Java).

In addition, cybercriminals masked a mobile encryption Trojan behind a file containing updates for Flash Player. After launching, the malware encrypted images, documents and video files stored on the device with users receiving a message telling them to pay a fee in order to decrypt the files.

“The increased use of mobile devices in our everyday life to exchange messages and data, as well as access and control bank accounts, has also resulted in increased exploitation opportunities for cybercriminals. Mobile malware and fraudulent spam is becoming more popular and efforts to dupe victims are becoming more sophisticated year on year, with the emergence of apps that can be used by cybercriminals both directly (for sending out spam, including malicious spam) and indirectly (via phishing emails). Mobile device users therefore need to be on their guard and remain vigilant, as cybercriminal activities in this area are only likely to increase, along with our reliance on devices”, warns Daria Loseva, Spam Analysis Expert at Kaspersky Lab.

The US remained the biggest source of spam (15.2%), with second place taken by Russia (6.15%) and China making way for Vietnam in third spot (6.12%). Germany was the biggest victim with 19.06% of spam attacks – a 9.84% increase on 2014, followed by Brazil at 7.64% which posted a 4.09% increase and moved up from sixth place in 2014. Russia moved up to third place from eighth, an increase of 3.06% to 6.03% of all spam attacks in 2015.

Hot spam topics of the year:
“Nigerian” fraud used the Ukrainian political situation, the Syrian civil war, the election in Nigeria and the earthquake in Nepal to exploit the kindness and empathy of recipients with believable email content. These emails contained content calling for material support for a person in need.

Although the Olympic games in Brazil has yet to take place, fraudsters have already started to exploit the event, sending emails announcing false lottery wins and asking the recipient to fill in a form with their personal details.

In these attacks, emails with pdf attachments, pictures and other graphical elements were designed to fool the spam filters.

Global sales of smartphones to end users totaled 403 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015, a 9.7 percent increase over the same period in 2014, according to Gartner.

However, this was their slowest growth rate since 2008. In 2015 as a whole, smartphone sales reached 1.4 billion units, an increase of 14.4 percent from 2014.

“Low-cost smartphones in emerging markets, and strong demand for premium smartphones, continued to be the driving factors,” said Anshul Gupta, Research Director at Gartner.

“An aggressive pricing from local and Chinese brands in the midrange and entry-level segments of emerging markets led to consumers upgrading more quickly to affordable smartphones.”

Gupta said that 85 percent of users in the emerging Asia/Pacific market are replacing their current midrange phone with the same category of phone. In addition, currency devaluations against the U.S. dollar in many emerging markets are putting further margin pressure on many vendors that import devices.

Current market conditions are prompting some vendors to consider setting up manufacturing operations in India and Indonesia to avoid being hit by future unfavorable currency devaluations and high import taxes.

In the fourth quarter of 2015, Samsung and Huawei were the only two top-five smartphone vendors to increase their sales to end users. Apple suffered its first decline in sales of smartphones – iPhone sales were down 4.4 percent.

Although Samsung was the No.1 vendor, Gartner analysts said the company faces challenges. “For Samsung to stop falling sales of premium smartphones, it needs to introduce new flagship smartphones that can compete with iPhones and stop the churn to iOS devices,” said Gupta.

With an increase in sales of 53 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, Huawei achieved the best performance year over year. Huawei’s increased brand visibility overseas, and its decision to sell almost only smartphones, gave it a higher average selling price in 2015.

For total sales of smartphones in 2015, Samsung maintained the No. 1 position, but its market share declined by 2.2 percentage points. In 2015, Apple sold 225.9 million iPhones, to achieve a market share of almost 16 percent. Huawei’s smartphone sales approached 104 million units, up 53 percent year over year.

In terms of smartphone operating system (OS) market, Android increased 16.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, to account for 80.7 percent of the global total. “Android benefited from continued demand for affordable smartphones and from the slowdown of iOS units in the premium market in the fourth quarter of 2015,” said Roberta Cozza, Research Director at Gartner.

In the premium segment, despite Apple’s slower year-over-year fourth-quarter sales, Apple narrowed the market share gap with Samsung in 2015 as a whole.