Telenor has been charged in Norway over its former operations in Myanmar, with police investigating whether the telecommunications group was complicit in crimes against humanity after the military coup of February 2021. Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service (Kripos) and Police Security Service (Politiets sikkerhetstjeneste, PST) are conducting separate investigations and on Tuesday searched the company’s headquarters at Fornebu, outside Oslo.
Telenor faces two investigations over Myanmar
According to a statement from Kripos, the investigation concerns the period between the military coup on 1 February 2021 and the completion of Telenor’s sale of its wholly owned subsidiary Telenor Myanmar Ltd on 25 March 2022.
Kripos has charged Telenor ASA with suspected complicity in crimes against humanity. Investigators say Telenor Myanmar repeatedly provided the military authorities with historical traffic data concerning customers during a period in which the military was carrying out widespread abuses against parts of the civilian population.
PST is conducting a separate investigation into an alleged violation of Norway’s sanctions legislation. Police say the sale of Telenor Myanmar included sanctioned surveillance equipment without the required authorisation from Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Utenriksdepartementet).
The two investigations cover much of the same period and require access to overlapping evidence, which is why Kripos and PST are working together.
No individuals have been charged or are currently under investigation in the case, according to TV 2.
Police searched Telenor’s headquarters near Oslo
Kripos and PST searched Telenor’s headquarters at Fornebu on Tuesday following decisions by the Oslo District Court (Oslo tingrett).
Telenor said in a stock exchange announcement that the investigations followed a prolonged dialogue with Norwegian prosecutors and that the company had already provided authorities with extensive documentation and information.
Telenor communications chief Thomas Midteide told TV 2 that the Myanmar case was “a very serious and terrible case that will stay with Telenor forever”, while saying it was too early for the company to assess the basis of the charges.
The company said it would cooperate fully with investigators and provide any additional documents requested by police.
Telenor says it had no real choice after the military coup
Telenor has argued that its operations in Myanmar after the coup took place under extreme pressure from the military authorities.
“We experienced that we had no real choice, and that we could not put our employees’ lives at risk,” Telenor information chief David Fidjeland said in an email to Norwegian broadcaster TV 2.
According to Fidjeland, employees risked imprisonment, torture or the death penalty if the company refused orders issued by the military authorities. He described the coup as a tragedy for Myanmar and said Telenor had found itself in an impossible situation without good alternatives.
The company has therefore not yet commented in detail on the accusations themselves, saying it wants the investigation to be completed first.
The Myanmar operations have followed Telenor since its 2022 exit
Telenor entered Myanmar after the country’s telecommunications monopoly was dismantled in 2014. Its position became increasingly difficult after the military seized power in February 2021, shortly before a democratically elected government was due to take office.
During the period that followed, the military authorities demanded access to telecommunications data while intensifying repression against opponents and other civilians. Telenor ultimately sold its Myanmar business in 2022.
The circumstances surrounding that withdrawal have remained controversial, particularly over the handling of sensitive customer information and the consequences for people targeted by the military authorities.
The new Norwegian criminal investigations move the issue into a different legal phase. They will examine whether decisions taken by Telenor and its former subsidiary went beyond compliance with coercive orders and could amount to criminal complicity in abuses committed by the military regime, as well as whether the company’s withdrawal breached sanctions rules.
The case is also significant in Norway because the Norwegian state is Telenor’s majority shareholder, giving the investigation a broader public dimension beyond the company’s corporate responsibility.
For now, the charges remain allegations under investigation. The central question for Norwegian authorities will be how responsibility should be assessed when a company operating under an authoritarian regime complies with demands that may expose customers to serious human rights violations, while arguing that refusing those demands would have endangered its own employees.
