Universal Music owner Vivendi has announced that its former CEO Jean-Marie Messier and other former top execs have been ordered to stand trial in relation to the French conglom's financial woes back at the start of the decade.
As reported way back when, Vivendi nearly collapsed after a period of excessive expansion and amid allegations of false financial reporting. Saving the company involved, among other things, selling off most of the Universal entertainment businesses, with only Universal Music remaining fully within the Vivendi group.
Now a French judge has decided to put Messier et al on trial over allegations they misled their investors. This despite recommendations from Parisian prosecutors to let the whole thing lie.
The story has an interesting music industry angle, over and above Vivendi's ownership of Universal Music. One of the other former top execs named by the French judge is Warner Music chief Edgar Bronfman Jr, who ended up heading up Vivendi after merging the Universal entertainment giant he'd created with the former water company. From 2001, and during the firm's initial financial woes, he was Vice-Chair of the conglom.
Both Messier and Bronfman Jr deny any wrong doing. The latter's legal man, told Reuters: "We are just now reviewing the court filing, but as we've said all along Mr Bronfman's transactions have at all times been proper and at no time did he contravene any French laws or regulations".