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04 April 2025
In a significant turnaround for MTN Cameroon, the Littoral Court of Appeal in Douala has ruled in favour of the telecom giant, effectively lifting the garnishee orders imposed by Bestinver Group. This legal entanglement has plagued MTN for over two and a half years, causing disruptions and uncertainty for the company and its stakeholders.
The court's decision found that Bestinver did not possess a valid claim against MTN Cameroon, clearing the path for the telco to regain access to its financial resources frozen since September 2022. MTN Cameroon officially received the final order in early March 2025 and welcomed the ruling as a validation of its long-standing defines.
This case originated from a financial dispute involving Ahmadou Baba Danpullo, the influential owner of Bestinver Group, and South Africa's First National Bank (FNB) over a real estate loan. After FNB liquidated several of Danpullo's properties, he sought to recover his losses using various South African companies operating in Cameroon, which led to the court-ordered garnishment of MTN's accounts holding approximately $22 million at the time.
In June 2023, MTN confirmed that its bank accounts had been frozen due to the garnishee order. The situation escalated when a court decided that the frozen funds would be moved to an escrow account managed by the court registrar while they deliberated on the ongoing garnishee dispute.
Former MTN Cameroon CEO Mitwa Ng'ambi previously asserted that the garnishment was both abusive and unjustified, highlighting that MTN had no direct ties to either the Bestinver Group or the contentious financial dealings with the South African bank. Since then, the telecommunications leader has been engaged in a determined fight to reclaim its assets and restore normalcy to its operations.
