Mobily CEO says those responsible for restatements ‘identified’

Certain people in Mobily who were responsible for financial irregularities in the company were identified, Mobily Chairman Sulaiman al-Qwaiz told CNBC Arabiya television, without elaborating further.

He stressed that Mobily, Saudi Arabia’s second largest operator, will continue to recover throughout 2016.

The company’s decision to increase by SAR 800 million the provisions related to a dispute with Zain in the second quarter of 2015 will not have an impact on the outcome of the case with Zain, but it will give the company a breathing space to be able to deal with any possible results of the arbitration, he told CNBC on Sunday.

Earlier that day, a market regulator-led investigation revealed that Mobily should report higher losses for 2014 to SAR 1.745 billion, a SAR 830 million increase. First quarter profit was SAR 8 million.

Mobily has been in arbitration with Zain Saudi since last year over SAR 2.2 billion claim it made against Zain.

A dispute started between the two companies over the application of a 2008 contract, under which Mobily provided domestic roaming and site sharing services to Zain, an affiliate of Kuwait’s Zain, which began commercial operations in the kingdom that year.