Last update - 00:00 15/11/2007
Sports channel could face NIS 430 million lawsuit over Italian soccer deal
By Yael Walzer, Haaretz Correspondent
A broadcast agreement dating from 2002 about Italian soccer matches could land the cable TV company in court facing a major class-action lawsuit.
The Sports Channel (Channel 5) has received warning that a NIS 430 million class-action suit against it and the cable television company, filed in 2002, will be revived unless five main Italian soccer league games featuring Inter Milan and Juventus are broadcast live, as agreed in an August 2006 compromise deal.
Attorney Reut Ben Zeev says on behalf of the claimants that the court-sanctioned agreement has been violated. Six of the nine rounds of the Italian League matches already held have not been broadcast as they should have been, she says.
In addition, none of the Inter Milan or Juventus games have been broadcast, in direct violation of the agreement, Ben Zeev says, calling this development "contempt of court". A spokesman for the Sports Channel, however, said the attorney was "rushing to smear the cable and satellite companies" and that "only quantitative pledges" were made.
Broadcast rights to the Italian League were jointly acquired by the Sports Channel and broadcasting company Charlton this year. But most of the games over recent weeks have not been broadcast because of disagreements between the two companies. A particular sore point has been Charlton's assertion that the Sports Channel refused to pay it for key games.
The original class action was filed to the Tel Aviv District Court in 2002 against Metav Cable Communications and Golden Channels - now known as HOT - the Cable and Satellite Council and the Communications Ministry. Claimants representing the public contended that the companies had grossly misled the public and violated consumer contracts, including transfer of content from one channel to another. They accused the Cable Council of neglecting its duties.
The parties reached a compromise in August 2006, which was granted the validity of a verdict. The plaintiffs are said to have agreed to broadcast live all six Inter Milan and Juventus games in the 2007-2008 season, with the deal rendered void and the suit renewed if the channel failed to meet any of the terms. But the Sports Channel dismissed the threat of legal proceedings.
"Attorney Ben Zeev has not bothered to check the facts, and has based the claim on an outdated, irrelevant compromise agreement, and is rushing to smear the cable and satellite companies and the Sports Channel in newspaper headlines," the spokesman says.
"If she had waited to receive our response to her letter she would have learned that the compromise agreement does not include an undertaking to broadcast the Inter Milan and Juventus games, nor does it promise to broadcast the main game. Only quantitative pledges were made with regard to the Italian league, and we intend to meet these and more. We intend to review the legal repercussions of attorney Ben Zeev's unfounded remarks."
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