The Johannesburg Stock Exchange allowed trading to resume in MTN’s stock after a three-hour stoppage earlier on Monday.

According to early morning trading on the South African bourse, MTN shares fell as low as 9.7 percent on Monday, then rising to 5 percent, before being suspended a few minutes to 11am.

The  9.7 percent drop  followed a report by CAJ News in Nigeria that MTN had failed to convince the Nigerian Communications Commission to lower its penalty.

They traded 5.7 percent lower at 148.80 rand as of 2:39 p.m. in Johannesburg, valuing the company at 274 billion rand ($20 billion).

Nigeria is MTN’s biggest market with 62 million customers as of September. The stock has declined more than a fifth since news of the penalty was reported a week ago, and is trading at about three-year lows.

“I don’t have an update,” Tony Ojobo, a spokesman for the Nigerian Communications Commission, said by phoneto Bloomberg inquiries.

While senior MTN officials and the NCC have been in discussions, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa have not engaged in talks, according to their spokesmen.

MTN was fined on N1.04tr for failure to disconnect 5.1 million unregistered subscribers within the NCC deadline. Immediately after the fine, MTN stock took a red turn, with the company experienced over 12 percent decline in its shares for the first time in 17 years on the JSE. The decline continued on Tuesday, October 27 as MTN shares lost more value, falling by another four percent Tuesday and 2.6 percent to 155.85 rand at the close of business on Wednesday – the lowest since October 2012. MTN’s market value had dropped by 22 percent since the fine was made public on Monday. According to Bloomberg, MTN has lost $5.24b (N1.4tr) in market capitalisation from October 23 to 29, as the fine continued to take toll on its value on Monday November 2.

Agency reports