Cecchi Gori springs $1.4 billion suit
Mogul sues Telecommunications Authority
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Cecchi Gori -- whose Finmavi holding company was ruled bankrupt by a Rome court in 2006 after being awash in red ink for more than a decade -- is seeking E940 million ($1.4 billion) in damages from the Telecommunications Authority.
The producer claims the regulator in 2001 unfairly nixed a planned merger between Telecom Italia and his TV holdings (then called Telemontecarlo). That merger took place months later, but the Italian mogul says the delay allowed Telecom Italia to buy him out too cheaply and started his downward financial spiral.
Meanwhile, a Rome bankruptcy court has been trying to sell off part of Finmavi’s vast library, valued at $60 million, and its homevid unit, but no buyers showed up at an auction earlier this month, so that sale has been rescheduled for April.
Amid all this, Cecchi Gori’s “Scusa ma ti chiamo amore” (“Sorry If I Call You Love”), a prurient romancer based on a bestseller and toplining hunky Raoul Bova (“Under the Tuscan Sun”) as a thirtysomething ad man who becomes entangled with a 17-year-old, is Italy’s top earner this year, having pulled $18 million in four weeks.
Produced by Cecchi Gori, it is being distributed by Medusa, owned by his one-time rival, Silvio Berlusconi.
