Turkish telecommunications group Turkcell has brought its legal wrangle with JSE-listed MTN Group over a mobile phone contract in Iran to home ground, as the Turkish operator revived its court case in the South Gauteng High Court on Wednesday.

“The filing of the lawsuit in South Africa is a continuation of the legal process that was initiated in US courts,” Turkcell said in a statement.

MTN responded that, while it was aware of reports of the refiled lawsuit and planned to oppose the court action, it had not received or viewed the court papers. It was understood that Turkcell was seeking damages of about $4.2-billion plus interest.

But the group held its stance that there was no legal merit to Turkcell's claim.

MTN came under pressure last year after the Turkey-based mobile operator lodged a $4.2-billion lawsuit in a US court accusing the South African company of engaging in corrupt behaviour to secure a mobile licence in Iran in 2005.

MTN Group CEO Sifiso Dabengwa, at the time, criticised the move, stating that the case should be heard in South Africa, Iran or Turkey, as neither firm was a US company and the alleged conduct happened in foreign territory.

However, Turkcell stated in its opposition filing that the case would not get a fair trial in South Africa owing to MTN’s political connectedness.

Turkcell withdrew the lawsuit against the South African mobile operator in May following a US Supreme Court ruling that limited the ability of human rights plaintiffs to invoke a 1789 Alien Tort Statute, which has been used since the 1980s to bring international human rights cases in US courts.

The Turkish operator is accusing MTN of violating the US Alien Tort Statute, which has become known as the “Kiobel case”, by allegedly bribing former South African ambassador to Iran, Yusuf Saloojee, Iranian official Javid Ghorbanoghli, and other South African and Iranian government officials, in efforts to win the licence.

Turkcell also claimed that MTN lobbied South Africa to back Tehran's nuclear development programme, while promising Iran the group would use its political “influence” to procure the supply of defence equipment to Iran.

The operator claimed that it successfully bid for Iran’s first private GSM licence in 2004, but, owing to the “unlawful actions” by MTN, the Turkish operator was prevented from receiving the licence.

In February, the MTN-appointed Hoffmann Committee’s year-long investigation found Turkcell's allegations against it to be “a fabric of lies, distortions and inventions".

The Hoffmann Committee, which was headed by British Supreme Court judge Lord Leonard Hoffmann, and which comprised MTN independent nonexecutive directors Peter Mageza and Jeff van Rooyen, found that the accusations – allegedly based on information supplied by former employee Christian Kilowan – were inaccurate and held no indication or evidence of conspiracy or bribery.

Kilowan was involved in MTN’s Iranian operations from August 2004 to November 2007.

The 193-page Hoffmann Commission report, with a further 500 pages of appendices, was compiled through the consideration and investigation of available evidence, electronic and documentary records, the testimony of Kilowan and several expert reports commissioned by the Hoffmann Committee, besides others.