Appeals court overturns Korek settlement ruling, regulator says

BAGHDAD — An appeals court in Baghdad has overturned a ruling that bound Iraq’s telecom regulator to its debt settlement with Korek Telecom, the Kurdistan Region-based mobile operator, the Communications and Media Commission said Tuesday.

Baghdad’s Rusafa Court of Appeal, acting in its appellate capacity, overturned a Rusafa Court of First Instance ruling that required the commission to abide by the terms of the settlement, the commission said in a statement. The decision came on the commission’s appeal against the lower-court ruling, it said.

The commission’s legal department reads the decision as meaning Korek can no longer rely on the overturned ruling to compel the regulator to carry out the settlement, the statement said.

“Based on this decision, Korek is obliged to pay the financial debts it owes to this commission in accordance with the approved legal and regulatory procedures,” the commission said.

The commission said it would keep taking legal steps to collect the money it is owed.

The Rusafa Court of First Instance ruled Sept. 28 to annul the commission’s June 2 decision to cancel the settlement, keeping the agreement in force. The commission responded at the time that the ruling did not return Korek to operation or lift its other measures, and that the company’s debts to the state still stood.

Korek has relied on that ruling. On Nov. 1, the day the regulator shut down Korek’s network in 14 governorates outside the Kurdistan Region, the company said Baligh Abu Kalal, the commission’s chief executive, who heads the regulator’s executive body, was breaking the law by refusing to carry out a judgment that is enforceable immediately. Korek said it reserved the right to claim compensation.

In late October, Abu Kalal said at the Erbil International Book Fair that Korek must pay 500 billion dinars (about $330 million at the official rate) and present a federal tax clearance before it could resume operations. He called the payment a first installment on debts he put at more than 2 trillion dinars (about $1.3 billion). The tax clearance must come from the federal Finance Ministry, he said.

If Korek meets both conditions, the commission is ready to sign a new settlement and let the company return to work, Abu Kalal said. He added that the commission had formally asked for a change in Korek’s management, a right he said the contract grants it.

The commission said in April that Korek owed about 1.4 trillion dinars (about $1.06 billion at the time) under the settlement, signed in September 2025, with liabilities still accruing. It canceled the agreement in June, saying Korek had failed to meet its terms. The regulator then closed Korek’s offices in Baghdad and other governorates. A Rusafa court suspended those measures in August, but the commission said the same court later lifted that order on appeal.

The dispute goes back to the 2007 mobile license auction. The commission says Korek still owes $375 million from it. Korek says that payment depended on the regulator handing over the subscriber base of the former Iraqna network, which it says never happened.