Telecommunications group Telkom’s procurement policy and the application thereof was upheld when the Supreme Court of Appeal on Tuesday set aside the North Gauteng High Court’s interim interdict against the company, as requested by ZTE Mzansi.

The appeal was upheld with costs, Telkom indicated.

In March last year, Telkom was interdicted from implementing its tender for the provision of Multi Services Access Node (MSAN) and concluding any service level agreement with the successful bidders. This was pending the outcome of arbitration between it and ZTE Mzansi.

“We had no doubt that Telkom’s procurement policy and procedures would not be found wanting. Telkom is pleased that the deployment of the MSAN and the roll-out of the higher speed broadband project has overcome a potential obstacle and can now continue unabated,” outgoing Telkom Group CEO Nombulelo Moholi said.

In 2011, Telkom published a tender for the provision of MSANs. ZTE Mzansi had submitted a bid, but was not shortlisted because Telkom felt it failed to meet certain technical criteria during the evaluation process.

The telecommunications group stated that it had awarded the tender to Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent Technologies in November 2011, following a fair, open, transparent and competitive procurement process, which was validated by external auditors.

In January last year, ZTE Mzansi served an application on Telkom seeking to restrain the company from implementing the tender in terms of an interim interdict. Telkom and Alcatel–Lucent opposed the application.

In May 2012, the North Gauteng High Court granted Telkom leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal against the interdict. The Supreme Court of Appeal held that it would be an ‘unbusinesslike construction’ if Telkom was obliged to resolve disputes with multiple bidders by arbitration with varying awards before it could safely implement an award.

In addition, the Supreme Court of Appeal confirmed that no contractual relationship is created when a bidder submits a tender in response to an invitation to do so.

The MSAN units delivered the long-awaited higher speed broadband and fibre to the curb and/or premises. Telkom, on March 4, launched its digital subscriber line broadband offerings of up to 20 Mb/s and up to 40Mb/s to the market.