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Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecoms operator, said today that it will receive $129 million from Zain Group, Kuwait’s leading telecoms firm, to settle litigations and disputes arising from its acquisition of Zain’s African business in 2010. The New Delhi-headquartered company said the payment will also settle the litigation brought by Econet Wireless Limited over its 5 per cent stake in Airtel Nigeria.

"Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) BV and Zain Telecom have reached an agreement, pursuant to which Zain will pay for settlement of Airtel's claims on account of the Nigeria litigation, certain tax matters and associated legal costs," Airtel said. “Under the terms of the 2010 share sale and purchase agreement, Zain had provided Airtel certain indemnities covering the Nigeria litigation and for certain tax claims.”

As part of Airtel’s $10.7 billion acquisition of Zain’s 15 African operations, Bharti Airtel had acquired 65 per cent of Zain Nigeria. But the Lagos-based company had been enmeshed in a long-running shareholder dispute with South Africa-based Econet Wireless, which is controlled by billionaire businessman Strive Masiyiwa.

In its storied history, Econet Nigeria, which won a GSM licence in 2001, was taken over by Vodacom in 2004. After a few months, Vodacom pulled out of Nigeria and the company was acquired by Vee Networks. About a year later, Vmobile was acquired by Celtel. In 2008, Zain would take ownership of Celtel, before exiting the company and giving ownership to the Indian telecoms giant, with Econet Wireless ostensibly remaining an existing minority shareholder in the company. Nigerian and international courts have since affirmed Econet Wireless’ claims.

"A separate settlement has been reached between Airtel and Econet Wireless Ltd settling all claims, disputes whatsoever, between the two including in Nigeria and Netherlands,” Bharti Airtel said. “With these settlements, Airtel has closed several ongoing major litigations in Nigeria, UK and Netherlands.

In a statement released on Thursday, Zain said the payment will have no future financial impact on its company as it already set aside provisions to cover potential payments related to the transaction.

Founded in 1995, Bharti Airtel has operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa with over 300 million subscribers. The company’s subsidiary in Nigeria, Airtel Nigeria, is the third largest operator in the country with over 32 million subscribers.