Vivendi sues Mediaset in Italy over pan-European plan

MILAN (Reuters) – French media group Vivendi (PA:) has filed a lawsuit against Italian broadcaster Mediaset (MI:), seeking to invalidate the decisions of a shareholder meeting that last month approved a corporate overhaul, Mediaset said on Thursday.

Vivendi, led by tycoon Vincent Bollore, has been a hostile Mediaset shareholder since the two sides fell out in 2016 over an aborted pay-TV deal.

After the failed pay-TV sale, the French group built a 29% stake in Mediaset – a holding that the Italian group considers illegitimate. The two sides have been in a legal war ever since.

Milan-based Mediaset, which is controlled by the family of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, has since set up a plan to merge with its Spanish subsidiary Mediaset Espana (MC:) under a Dutch holding company to help create a pan-European player.

Vivendi, which has plans of its own to become a European media powerhouse, opposes the ongoing overhaul saying the new entity’s governance strengthens the grip the Berlusconis have on the group.

It has already brought legal proceedings against Mediaset’s plan in Spain and in the Netherlands.

In a statement on Thursday, Mediaset said it had been notified that a lawsuit had now been filed in Italy too, adding that a court hearing had been scheduled for Jan. 10, 2020.

It said Vivendi was also seeking unspecified damages from Mediaset and the Berlusconi family holding company, Fininvest, saying their actions had hurt the value of its Mediaset stake.

Mediaset’s merger plan was approved by a Sept. 4 shareholder meeting where Vivendi was allowed to vote only with the 9.99% Mediaset stake it owns directly – not enough to block the deal on its own.

Two-thirds of Vivendi’s stake in Mediaset is held through an arms-length trust which Mediaset prevented from participating in the Sept. 4 meeting.

Disclaimer: Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. All CFDs (stocks, indexes, futures) and Forex prices are not provided by exchanges but rather by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual market price, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Therefore Fusion Media doesn`t bear any responsibility for any trading losses you might incur as a result of using this data.

Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.