MTN shares tumble as Ghana unit plans to contest Clydestone claims
Legal battle centres on intellectual property and compensation for mobile money launch
July 31, 2026 at 10:59 am
Jacqueline Mackenzie, Companies Reporter
MTN Ghana has rejected claims by Clydestone Ghana relating to the alleged unauthorised use of its intellectual property and plans to contest them in court.
However, news of the legal spat sent MTN Group’s shares tumbling almost 10% on the JSE in early Friday trade.
MTN Ghana acknowledged that it was served with the writ of summons and statement of claim, which relates to IT and fintech company Clydestone Ghana’s alleged role in the initiation of mobile money services in Ghana and concerns matters said to date back almost 20 years, it said in a statement.
On July 28 Clydestone Ghana started legal proceedings before the high court in Accra, against MTN Ghana, MTN Group and MobileMoney Fintech.
“MTN Ghana does not accept the claims made, considers them without merit, and will contest the proceedings fully. MTN Ghana will, however, not comment further on the substantive issues raised in the claim while the matter is before the court,” it said.
The company said the proceedings do not affect its operations, services, performance, results or mobile money services.
The work was commissioned on the understanding that the parties would execute a nondisclosure agreement and memorandum of understanding governing its use. According to the company’s claim, those agreements were never executed despite repeated requests and promises to execute
— Clydestone
On July 28 Clydestone announced it was initiating legal proceedings, claiming that proprietary intellectual property, confidential commercial information and operational methodology developed during a commissioned engagement in 2007 were subsequently used without authorisation or compensation.
It is seeking declarations, damages and equitable remedies, it said.
Clydestone said MTN Ghana approached it in 2007 to develop a comprehensive commercial and operational framework for the launch of a mobile money business in Ghana. The engagement formed part of an established commercial relationship between the parties dating back to 1998.
It said the work was personally authored and delivered by the company’s founder and group CEO, Paul Jacquaye, and comprised a complete mobile money ecosystem including the commercial model, operational architecture, implementation methodology and supporting business case.
“Clydestone contends that the work was commissioned on the understanding that the parties would execute a nondisclosure agreement and memorandum of understanding governing its use. According to the company’s claim, those agreements were never executed despite repeated requests and promises to execute,” it said.
Clydestone alleges that MTN Ghana subsequently used its proprietary work, commercial methodology and operational intelligence without authorisation or compensation, and that elements of the operational architecture and commercial model later implemented within MTN Mobile Money Ghana and deployed across multiple African jurisdictions materially derive from that commissioned work.
“The company’s proprietary intellectual property and operational methodology were commissioned and delivered in 2007. The wrongful use of that work has been ongoing since MTN Mobile Money Ghana launched in 2009. What has changed is not the nature of the wrong but the availability of independently verifiable information that for the first time publicly documents its full continental scale and commercial significance,” it said.
From 2009 to 2025 no publicly available information permitted an objective, independently verifiable assessment of the full geographic deployment, user base or financial performance of the Mobile Money platform built on Clydestone’s foundation, it said.
When independent publications during 2025 and 2026 revealed the full extent of the Mobile Money business, we revisited every document relating to the original engagement. That review convinced our board that these proceedings were both justified and necessary
— Paul Jacquaye, Clydestone founder and group CEO,
“The full measure of the misappropriation was not publicly quantifiable. That changed with the publication of two internationally recognised documents in 2026.”
The GSMA “State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2026, published in March, confirmed Ghana as the world’s highest-ranked mobile money regulatory market, and MTN Ghana’s 2025 annual report disclosed about 19.3-million active Mobile Money users and annual Mobile Money revenue of about 6-billion cedis (R8.5bn).
“These publications provided, for the first time, among other things independently verifiable evidence of the full scale and commercial significance of what had been built on Clydestone’s proprietary foundation.”
It alleges the company has received neither payment nor acknowledgement in respect of the commissioned work since December 2007.
“This case is about accountability for commissioned intellectual property. MTN approached Clydestone, commissioned our work, and received the benefit of that work. For many years the true commercial scale of what had been developed could not be objectively assessed from publicly available information.
“When independent publications during 2025 and 2026 revealed the full extent of the Mobile Money business, we revisited every document relating to the original engagement. That review convinced our board that these proceedings were both justified and necessary. We have therefore placed the matter before the high court of Ghana, where it will be determined on the evidence and in accordance with the law,” said Jacquaye.
At 10.37am on the JSE, MTN’s shares were down 9.7% at R207.61.
MTN Ghana is due to release its first-half results later on Friday.
