Legal

South Africa, Africa's second largest telecommunications market, has become the latest country on the continent to deal with corruption charges regarding technology contracts, moving to cancel deals valued at more than US$552 million.  read more »

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission won't block Google's US$750 million acquisition of mobile advertising vendor AdMob because the deal isn't likely to harm competition in the emerging mobile advertising market, the agency said Friday.  read more »

Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is asking German authorities for a copy of the sentence a Munich court handed in the case of two former Siemens managers found guilty of bribery to obtain telecom contracts in Nigeria.  read more »

Rampant software piracy, weak legislation and poor regulatory enforcement has denied sub-Saharan African countries a chance to increase employment, tax benefits and GDP growth, according to a study issued this week by IDC and the Business Software Alliance (BSA).  read more »

IBM's former server chief, Robert Moffat, on Monday pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit securities fraud in a case connected to an insider-trading scandal.  read more »

Oracle on Monday was hit with a counterclaim by Rimini Street, the third-party software maintenance provider it sued in January over alleged intellectual property violations.  read more »

Just in time for the long-awaited iPad to go on sale, Apple has acquired the trademark on its name.  read more »

As the dirty details are exposed in Viacom's lawsuit against Google's YouTube, public statements from YouTube's lawyer try to make the case sound more consequential for users than it actually is.  read more »

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has set up a panel to probe the sale of Nitel and its M-tel arm following complaints that the bidding process was manipulated and bribes were offered.  read more »

Telkom Kenya is headed for showdown with local mobile developers after petitioning the government to prosecute people who reprogram handsets.  read more »