In November it was reported that Argentine broadcaster Canal 9 had been sold to Grupo Octubre, which is led by trade unionist and businessman Víctor Santamaría (who’s close to Argentine vice president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner). Grupo Octubre also owns the newspaper Página 12, considered to be a propagandistic tool for the current national government.
However, a widely held view is that Grupo Octubre actually did not acquire Canal 9 and that the TV station was never for sale. Nonetheless, the station is now entangled in complex litigation in judicial courts in both Argentina and the United States.
Recently, the Argentine Justice Department (the part of the Justice not yet co-opted by the government) decided to intervene and Judge Eduardo Malde appointed Laura Filippi as a comptroller at Canal 9 at the request of Remigio Ángel González y González, the Mexican businessman considered by the U.S. courts as the true owner of the TV station.
In July, Delaware Courts confirmed that the Albavision Group, owned by González y González, is 100 percent the owner of the group of companies that constitutes Channel 9, and that Carlos Eduardo Lorefice Lynch, who was González y González’s trusted man at Canal 9, but who later sided with Santamaria’s Grupo Octubre, “acted in bad faith, with treachery and advantage, fabricating a framework in order to illegally strip Albavision Group of its assets in Argentina.”
The judicial confrontation started in the Delaware courts because the Albavision Group was registered there. In September, U.S. courts requested the eviction of Canal 9’s board of directors and the restitution of the station to the Albavision Group, but this did not occur due to an appeal filed by Lorefice Lynch. Despite this legal standoff, and the unsolved conflict, Grupo Octubre went public with the announcement of the TV station’s ownership by Grupo Octubre. The saga continues…
Pictured above is Remigio Ángel González y González, l., and Carlos Eduardo Lorefice Lynch
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