Berlusconi firm to pay 560 million euro fine
world 10:12 AM
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Fininvest company will pay a court-ordered fine of 560 million euros ($793 million) to a rival media group but said it will also make a second appeal against the ruling.
The damages were ordered in compensation for Fininvest having wrested control of the leading Mondadori publishing house from Compagnie Industriali Riunite (CIR) in 1990 after it bribed a judge to approve a company takeover.
“Following the sentence by Milan’s appeal court on July 9 concerning the Mondadori affair, Fininvest has decided to pay the sum directly to CIR,” the company said in a statement.
“The payment, which will be made before July 26, by no means implies the sentence has been accepted,” it said, adding that the company “will turn to the final court of appeal” to challenge the order.
The Milan appeals court had reduced by a quarter the original 750-million-euro ($1-billion) damages claim that a civil court had ordered the holding company to pay in October 2009. A judge ruled at the time that Berlusconi (left) was “co-responsible” for the bribery of the judge who ruled in favour of Fininvest in the takeover battle.
That judge was convicted of corruption in 2007 and sentenced to two years and nine months in prison. The Fininvest lawyer who bribed him was given a sentence of one year and six months.
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