Italian commercial broadcaster Mediaset filed a new complaint in June seeking damages of EUR 3 billion from French media giant Vivendi, reports business daily Il Sole 24 Ore, citing Vivendi’s recent first-half financial statement. The figure is double the amount claimed by Mediaset earlier this year following the French company’s decision to pull out of a deal to acquire the Mediaset Premium pay-TV unit in April 2016. Vivendi has since built up a 28.8 percent stake in Mediaset in a move that led communications regulator Agcom to order the French company to reduce its stake in the broadcaster or Telecom Italia by April 2018.
The confirmation of the higher damages claim comes after Mediaset CEO Pier Silvio Berlusconi informed shareholders in June that the company had filed a new claim against Vivendi on grounds of contract violation, unfair competition and breaking TV pluralism laws. "The first filing was linked to the failed pay-TV deal, this second one is a consequence of everything that came afterwards...," said Berlusconi at the time.
In July, Vivendi lodged an appeal against Agcom’s antitrust ruling, with the case due to be heard by the Lazio regional administrative court, the main Italian administrative court of first instance, in February 2018.
