Another lawsuit arrives in the legal battle between Mediaset and Vivendi. The French group has filed a claim for damages for defamation in court regarding the media campaign launched by the Biscione in parallel with the dispute for the stop to the acquisition of Premium.
Reuters writes this quoting a legal source close to the dossier while the first hearing is underway in the Milan court of the civil case brought by Mediaset and Fininvest against the French to ask for compensation for damages following the failure to execute the contracts to take over the pay TV last July. The French would not have quantified the claim for compensation.
At the same time, the Italian group filed a counter-suit against the French group for defamation in relation to the statements made by Arnauld de Puyfontaine (CEO of Vivendi) in two interviews in which he judged the information provided by Mediaset on Premium before the signing of the agreements to be misleading. This was reported by legal sources at the end of the hearing. The counter-complaint regards, in particular, the statements in which the manager had argued that Premium had been sold by Mediaset as if it were "a Ferrari" while it was actually "a Fiat Punto" and, using a similar metaphor, that Mediaset's pay TV it was a "McDonald's" while in the negotiations it would be presented by Mediaset as "a 3-star restaurant". The Mediaset action also concerns Monday's interview with the Financial Times in which de Puyfontaine defined Mediaset's information on Premium as "misleading".
Judge Vincenzo Perozziello reserved the right to decide on the admissibility of the requests since in defamation cases an attempt at mediation is envisaged following which it will be decided whether or not to include such requests in the case opened today. The judge also proposed the unification of the Fininvest and Mediaset v. Vivendi cases. The proposal met no objections.
