The divestiture process of Sri Lanka Telecom PLC (SLT) and the Lanka Hospitals Corporation PLC is back on track following the withdrawal of the writ applications filed by the Lyca Mobile Group, according to the State-Owned Enterprise Restructuring Unit (SOERU) of the Ministry of Finance, Economic Stabilisation, and National Policies (MoF).
Lyca Mobile SARL and Pettigo Comercio Internacional had filed a writ application against the divestiture process of SLT, whilst Lyca Leasing Holding Ltd. had filed a writ application against the divestiture process of Lanka Hospitals.
Speaking to The Sunday Morning Business, SOERU Head Suresh Shah revealed that the interim injunctions issued by the Court of Appeal preventing any measures being taken with regard to the divestiture of SLT and Lanka Hospitals had been vacated following the withdrawal of the applications.
Commenting further on the current stage of the divestiture processes, he said: “Potential investors are carrying out their due diligence process. Once that is completed, we will provide them with the Request for Proposal (RFP) documents and they will have to respond to it and submit their proposals.”
Accordingly, he revealed that the RFP process for SLT and Lanka Hospitals was likely to commence by next month.
On 27 February, a Court of Appeal bench comprising Justice D.N. Samarakoon sitting by himself issued an interim injunction preventing any future measures being taken concerning the divestiture of the Government’s shares in SLT and Lanka Hospitals.
These interim injunctions issued by the Court of Appeal were effective until the next date of the matter, which was fixed for 12 March.
The petitioners in their writ application had alleged that the Cabinet committee overseeing the restructuring of the SOEs had rejected their applications without providing reasons and that such rejection was arbitrary, unfair, and contrary to the law.
However, when the matter came up on 12 March, the petitioners had inexplicably withdrawn the applications, reserving the right to file fresh applications if necessary.
