Carlos Slim's America Movil makes $1 billion payment in Colombia case

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim's America Movil said on Tuesday that it had complied with a Colombian arbitration ruling ordering it to pay the government $1.08 billion for wireless telecommunication assets used in the South American nation.

However, America Movil's Colombian unit, Comunicacion Celular (COMCEL), continues to challenge the arbitration award, the company said in a statement.

"COMCEL will exhaust every national and international available legal action to challenge the arbitral award," the company said.

In July, a Colombian arbitration panel said America Movil and Telefonica failed to return installed telecommunication networks and infrastructure as part of agreements to provide cellular phone service in Colombia more than a decade ago, the government's legal defense agency said.

Original contracts signed in 1994 agreed that networks would be returned to the state in 10 years.

New contracts were later drawn up eliminating the return of the networks, but they were overruled by another legal authority that argued that the original contract could not be modified.

(Reporting by Julia Love and Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Sandra Maler)