Mediaset, the European court of justice agrees with Vivendi

• Mediaset, Vivendi asks for damages for defamation to the Biscione

• Mediaset, Vivendi at 26%.

  The Berlusconi family: "Let's resist"

• Consob: Vivendi exercises de facto control over Tim

• Vivendi climb on Mediaset, Bollorè investigated for stock manipulation

• Mediaset, Vivendi asks for damages for defamation to the Biscione

• Vivendi: the operation on Mediaset is not hostile

• Mediaset shareholders as well as Fininvest and Vivendi

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04 September 2020In a week already marked by the turning point made by the government towards a single network, a 'historic' sentence arrives, with many readings and consequences. The European Court of Justice has in fact accepted Vivendi's theses on the Tusmar of the Gasparri law, the rule on which Agcom has ordered the French to choose between a significant stake in Tim or Mediaset.

Even if the concrete application times of the decision are all to be defined, the Court intervened clearly, breaking the principle of impossibility of cross-checks between telecommunications groups and television operators.

The Lazio TAR had turned to the EU Court after Vivendi's appeal, which challenged the Agcom decision, and now the Administrative Court itself will have to decide how to accept the European ruling. A decision that could obviously be the subject of other appeals, of possible new Agcom interventions or the reference of an intervention by the Chambers to enact new legislation in the sector.   

Obviously

very satisfied, who collects an important round in his tug-of-war with the Biscione. "Mediaset and Berlusconi have been victims of their own plan or have been caught out in a context that they themselves have created in an attempt to go against the law", says a French spokesman, according to whom the Biscione "sought and is not managed to circumvent the fundamental principles of shareholder democracy "when he prevented the trust company in which Vivendi 'frozen' 20% of the Mediaset capital from voting at the meeting.

"It is a sentence that cancels a limit that was set to prevent Mediaset from entering the Tlc. Now it will also be able to enter the single network". The former Minister of Communications writes. Maurizio Gasparri, on Twitter, responding to a message from the director of the online newspaper Done, Peter Gomez saying Mediaset, the EU welcomes the court proceedings Vivendi: '' part of the Gasparri law is contrary to EU standards ''. 

According to the Luxembourg Court, the "provision of Italian law that prevents Vivendi from acquiring 28% of the capital of Mediaset is contrary to European Union law."

In fact, the sentence reopens the game in the match between Mediaset and Vivendi, but above all it questions the current status quo of the Italian radio and television system and in particular the limits to concentrations. Shortly after, Biscione replies to the sentence and taking note of the sentence declares itself ready to evaluate "every new opportunity in the field of Tlc business" in the event of changes to the Italian legislation. An interest that could already address the project of the single network starring Tim. During the day, Gasparri himself intervened, inviting us to pay attention to the strong positions that a legislative change could create in the national

system.The decision of the Luxembourg Court follows the sentences of the Courts of Madrid and Amsterdam which had already ruled in favor of Vivendi, rejecting the creation by Mediaset of the holding MediaForEurope.

A project that Vivendi had tried to block during the last meetings of the Biscione, being a 28.8% shareholder of Mediaset with 29.34% of the voting rights. Mediaset intervened precisely on the Codogno stake in Vivendi's hands - appealing to the Gasparri law - to denounce to Agcom an excess of concentration in the hands of the French, even 24% shareholders of Telecom Italia. Vivendi then turned to the TAR of Lazio, which in turn had asked the Court of Justice for an opinion after the decision of the French to file an appeal against the Agcom resolution that had forced them to confer 19.9% ​​of the share Mediaset to a trust company. The Luxembourg ruling therefore determines that the freezing of the quota of Mediaset shares held by Vivendi no longer has any value. Furthermore, the decision of the Biscione board to prevent French access and vote in the assembly is illegitimate.

Vivendi acknowledges the sentence "with great satisfaction", having "always acted in strict compliance with Italian law". For the French, Mediaset would have taken advantage of regulatory obstacles to "try to transfer its headquarters to the Netherlands, a project blocked by both the Spanish and Dutch courts". For its part, Mediaset does not miss the opportunity to let people know that - if there are revolutions in the Italian Tlc ecosystem - it will be ready to act as a protagonist. "If, contrary to what Italian law provides today, the possibility of convergence between the leaders of TLC and television publishing opens up, Mediaset, which in all these years has been bound and penalized by the ban, will evaluate with the utmost interest every new opportunity in Tlc business matters starting from the recent system developments on the single national fiber network ", comments Biscione.