The Milan court rejected the appeal filed by the French group Vivendi against the merger of Mediaset Italia and its Spanish subsidiary Mediaset España. The judges supported the conclusions of the judge Elena Riva Crugnola, who in the first instance decided to reject the requests of the French company to suspend the creation of the pan-European giant Media For Europe (MFE).
The Milanese court's decision, however, constitutes only a partial unlocking of the limbo situation in which this gigantic operation finds itself. In fact, the ruling allows the merger to continue in Italy, while Vivendi's challenge to Mediaset Spain's General Shareholders' Meeting is still pending.
Among the various points of the judgment in the first instance, it was explained that the suspension, on the one hand, would have calculable and compensable damages for Vivendi, while for Mediaset, the arrest of the project would have been considered "irreparable".
The Milan Court also now stresses to reject the appeal that Vivendi's point of view is that of a competitor with respect to Mediaset and "it follows that Vivendi may seek strategies to limit Mediaset's activity."
It is worth remembering that Vivendi owns 28.8% of Mediaset Italia, but only 9.99% of direct voting rights, and just over 1% in Mediaset España. Vincent Bolloré's chain decided to take legal action in Italy, the Netherlands (where it was also rejected) and Spain to prevent this merger of the Mediaset group, because the group led by Silvio Berlusconi did not allow him to participate with all of his voting rights, but only with the direct ones, in Italy.
In Spain, the Mercantile Court number 2 in Madrid recently decided that the hearing on the challenge to the merger by Vivendi will be held on July 1, instead of July 22, the previously scheduled date.
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