RCOM and South Africa’s MTN Group have called off their merger talks due to legal and regulatory issues.

RCOM and South Africa’s MTN Group have called off their merger talks due to legal and regulatory issues. The move comes after Reliance Industries’ Mukesh Ambani commenced arbitration proceedings against RCOM. Both RCOM and MTN had entered into a 45-day exclusive negotiation period for the proposed merger of their business. Owing to a dispute between the two Ambani brothers over the proposed merger, the deadline for the talks, which was earlier fixed at July 9, 2008, was extended to July 21, 2008. Had the merger materialised, it would have created a $70 billion telecom group with over 115 million subscribers across 23 countries.