Bharti Airtel withdraws bid for RCom assets citing questionable, unfair conduct

Telecom operator Bharti Airtel has withdrawn its bid to purchase assets of Reliance Communications (RCom) after terming the move of committee of creditors to extend the bid submission deadline on the request of Reliance Jio as “extremely unfair” and “biased”.

Without naming Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel Director (Finance) Harjeet Kohli in a letter to resolution professional Anish Niranjan Nanavaty said his company’s request to extend the deadline was turned down by the committee of creditors of RCom but surprisingly, the dates have been extended to accommodate submission by a bidder.

“Given the complexities involved in the proposed transaction, vide our letter dated October 31, 2019, we requested for an extension of time to submit the resolution plan from November 11, 2019, till December 1, 2019… Disappointingly, our request for extension was rejected by CoC,” Kohli said.