TechCentral reports that MTN South Africa has denied using an agreement with a company called Tuum Communications as a “guise” to hire restrained employees away rival Vodacom.  

An anonymous source alleged that MTN was “knowingly” targeting employees of Vodacom’s corporate business unit who were under a restraint of trade.  The source accused MTN of unethical behaviour and unfair business practices and stated:  “These Vodacom employees have been promised that they will be employed in the MTN environment when their restraint of trade has lapsed and that they can continue to manage the portfolio.”  The source claimed further that Tuum would serve as an “incubation hub to bypass the restraint of trade for any other Vodacom staff that MTN are seeking to employ in the future”.  But MTN hit back on Monday, saying it had “no intention to directly employ any Tuum employee now or in the future”.  MTN spokeswoman Jacqui O’Sullivan said:  “The partnership with Tuum Communications, or any of MTN’s other similar partnerships, are not in any way a ‘guise’ to bring on new employees or to circumvent restraints of trade.”  She said Tuum was a company serving MTN’s Enterprise business unit as a new sales channel and added:  “It is disappointing that these anonymous individuals have chosen to misrepresent the channel partnership model and to level unfair and false accusations against both MTN and Tuum Communications.

• Read the full original report at TechCentral

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