A high court in Ghana has dismissed the local MTN Group unit’s challenge to a move by the national telecommunications regulator aimed at exposing it to greater competition, the company said on Thursday.

In June, MTN appealed a decision by the National Communications Authority (NCA) to designate it a significant market power, a move that requires the regulator to take corrective action.

But in a 1 September decision, the court “dismissed the company’s application”, MTN said in a statement.

It said it maintained its position that the NCA’s decision was unfair from a procedural standpoint and would “explore all available options and next steps in this process”, without giving further details.

Statistics from the NCA showed MTN’s share in mobile data subscriptions accounted for almost 70% of the market from January to March.  — Reported by Christian Akorlie, with writing by Alessandra Prentice, (c) 2020 Reuters