Mediaset merger plan gets court date
June 16, 2020
From David Del Valle in Madrid
A commercial court in Madrid has set a July 1st hearing on Italian broadcaster Mediaset’s plans to merge its Italian and Spanish divisions under a Dutch holding, Mediaset Espana has declared in a filing with the Spanish regulator.
The Spanish commercial court (Juzgados de lo Mercantil) suspended the merger in October 2019 as a precautionary measure after French media group Vivendi, a major shareholder in Mediaset, brought a legal challenge. The hearing to resolve the case was later delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
Mediaset wants to merge the units under Dutch holding firm MediaforEurope (MFE) to pursue a European growth strategy to tackle competition from streaming rivals such as Netflix.