Italy's Mediaset won't forego compensation in any deal with Vivendi
MILAN, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Italy's top commercial broadcaster Mediaset said on Wednesday it was open to settling a long-running dispute with its second largest shareholder Vivendi but any potential deal would have to include compensation.
Mediaset, controlled by the family of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, has been seeking billions of euros in compensation from Vivendi since it pulled out of a deal to buy Mediaset's pay-TV business in 2016.
The legal battle intensified last year when Mediaset approved a plan to merge its Italian and Spanish businesses under a Dutch holding company, through which it wants to build pan-European alliances.
Opposition from Vivendi, which said the governance structure would strengthen the Berlusconis' grip over the group, led to the project being suspended by a Madrid court.
In a letter to Mediaset's board members, Vivendi asked for a meeting with the group's top executives to start discussing a possible truce, sources said on Tuesday.
Mediaset said that in the letter it received on Monday, Vivendi had proposed that both parties drop all legal actions, including damage claims, to end their dispute.
"Mediaset is ready to examine concrete proposals in the interest of all of the group's shareholders, without however foregoing compensation", the TV group said in a statement.
Following the failure of the pay-TV deal four years ago Vivendi built up a 29% stake in Mediaset, in a move that the Italian broadcaster considered hostile.
Attempts so far to reach a settlement in their legal case have so far proven unsuccessful.
Mediaset is now also seeking damages for the cases filed by Vivendi against Mediaset's pan-European project that it says led to a business standstill, sources told Reuters. (Reporting by Elvira Pollina;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)
