The Argentine government has announced that it will resume the investigation into Telecom Italia SpA's participation in Telecom Argentina, EFE reports. The new investigation will be lead by Economy Policies Secretary Roberto Feletti and the case will be governed by Argentina's Supreme Court.

Telecom Italia SpA said it had delayed the release of its full 2009 financial results in the face of suspicions of tax fraud in connection with one of its subsidiaries. The company said its executive board had postponed until March 25, 2010, its approval of group accounts as well as its objectives for 2009-2012, which had been scheduled to be released on February 26, 2010. The company said that Italian legal authorities had sequestered 300 million in funds held by the company's Telecom Italia Sparkle subsidiary. The unit, along with the group Fastweb, is suspected to have been implicated in an alleged tax fraud and money laundering operation. The company reported preliminary earnings results for 2009. Preliminary sales in 2009 had fallen 5.6% to 27.19 billion, with underlying earnings slipping 0.4% to 11.3 billion.

Telecom Italia SpA provided preliminary earnings results for the fourth quarter and year of 2009. The company reported its organic EBITDA came to 11,335 million, largely in line with 2008 44 million or -0.4%, the EBITDA margin rising to 41.7% of revenues. Organic EBITDA margin in fourth quarter of 2009 was 38.9%, +3.3 pp from the same period of 2008. Organic EBITDA comes to 10.1 billion (-204 million, -2.0% on 2008), with an organic EBITDA margin of 46.5% (+2.3 pp against 2008). In Brazil EBITDA targets were met, reaching 1.3 billion (+9.6% against 2008) with a margin of 25.7% (+2.3 pp against 2008). Domestic market revenues came to 21.688 million, down 6.8% from 2008, impacted by a very competitive operating environment and the economic crisis.