News

Telefonica's Latin American strategy director, Eduardo Navarro, announced that the company may challenge Vivendi's purchase of Brazillian telco GVT.



Although the French company Vivendi claims to have complied with all relevant rules and regulations, the USD4.2 billion transaction is under increasing scrutiny by the Brazilian government authorities. Some minority investors say Vivendi did not provide sufficient information on certain issues.



This may allow Telefonica to re-launch its own attempt to take over GVT, an important player in Brazilian telecommunications, which was thwarted by Vivendi.



This news comes at the same time as Telefonica has agreed to purchase German company Hansenet for €900 million and as the company implements a strategy to expand its business service offerings to 15 new European countries.



Telefonica signed a global agreement with UNI in 2001, which guarantees trade union rights for all Telefonica workers and which has enabled thousands of call centre workers in Brazil to organise in recent years.