NOVEMBER 27, 2002

EM.TV fighting for its Formula One shares?

The Financial Times Deutschland is reporting that EM.TV is preparing a law suit to claim back its share of the Formula One group, arguing that the takeover of the shares by the now-defunct Kirch Group was not carried out correctly. The shares later passed into the hands of the Bavarian state bank, the Bayerische Landesbank. The problem relates to 16.7% of the shares of SLEC, the Formula One holding company, which EM.TV claims it still owns. EM.TV is not keen to write off the money involved as this involves something like $200m and the company is not doing well at the moment, having lost $115m in the first nine months of the year.

A legal action will certainly not help matters for Formula One.