August 10 – Mexican broadcaster Televisa is failing to shake off allegations that it bribed its way to the broadcast rights to the 2018, 2022, 2026 and 2030 World Cups, with an amendment to a March complaint in the NY Federal court being filed this week.
The Colleges of Applied Arts & Technology Pension Plan, which owns Televisa shares that are traded on the NYSE, alleges that investors lost hundreds of millions of dollars as the company’s shares fell late last year and earlier this year after media reports of possible misconduct in the World Cup broadcast rights buy. The shareholder is seeking compensation.
Shares in Grupo Televsia fell again on news of the amended filing adding the pension fund to the complaint. Televisa’s New York-traded shares were recently down 4.7%, at $19.04 per share.
Shareholders are suing the broadcaster saying they have been defrauded of millions of dollar via the corruption scheme that used a Swiss-based Televisa subsidiary Mountrigi Management Group, to pay bribes to high-ranking FIFA officials to win the coveted rights to the tournaments.
Televisa have repeatedly denied the bribery allegations, which it said “have no legal grounds, besides containing important errors of fact.”
The company said a detailed investigation carried out by independent lawyers had concluded there had been no acts of corruption. “As we have said since last year, all the payments that Televisa makes follow duly documented business contracts that are in no way drawn up for payments related to any wrongful conduct,” Televisa said.
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