{"id":47989,"date":"2026-07-08T11:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T11:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/47989\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T11:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T11:44:07","slug":"paris-court-rules-bollore-does-not-exercise-control-over-vivendi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/47989\/","title":{"rendered":"Paris Court Rules Bollor\u00e9 Does Not Exercise Control Over Vivendi"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Paris Court of Appeal ruled on Wednesday that French tycoon Vincent Bollor\u00e9 and his Bollor\u00e9 Group do not exercise control over media and entertainment group Vivendi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ruling, which was confirmed by Vivendi in a statement, is significant because a decision in the opposite direction could have triggered an obligatory buyout of Vivendi by Bollor\u00e9, with some estimates suggesting this could have cost the group more than $10B.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ruling follows a claim by minority Vivendi investor CIAM which began in the wake of Vivendi\u2019s 2024 breakup, and the spinning-off of Canal Plus, Havas, and Louis Hachette.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnder that operation, which won the approval of 97% of the Vivendi shareholders, the Bollor\u00e9 Group retained a 29.3% stake in Vivendi. Under French law, shareholders surpassing a 30% ownership threshold must launch a buyout offer.<\/p>\n

\n\tCIAM argued that while Bollore\u2019s stake in Vivendi was under the threshold, it effectively controlled the group.<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing Wednesday\u2019s ruling, CIAM partner and president Catherine Berjal said the investor group would be launching an appeal at the Court of Cassation. <\/p>\n

\n\tA previous April 2025 Court of Appeal ruling stated that Vivendi was de facto controlled by Vincent Bollor\u00e9 and the Bollor\u00e9 Group, paving the way for a mandatory buyout. This was then overruled by the Court of Cassation in November 2025, which referred the case back to the Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fresh ruling sees Paris\u2019 Court of Appeal reject Attorney General Carla Deveille-Fontinha\u2019s argument that Bollor\u00e9 did control Vivendi on the basis that the group had \u201cnever encountered any opposition\u201d at AGMs and that \u201cdecisions lacking Vincent Bollor\u00e9\u2019s support\u201d \u00a0were not adopted.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt could also have a knock-on effect for the Universal Music Group, in which the Bollor\u00e9 Group owns an 18.4% stake, and Vivendi owns a 13.4% stake. There had been suggestions that the Bollor\u00e9 Group would have to sell it\u2019s UMG stake to finance a mandatory Vivendi buyout. <\/p>\n

\n\tThis possibility has weighed on the UMG share price, while Cyrille Bollor\u00e9<\/a>, Chair and CEO of the\u00a0Bollor\u00e9 Group<\/a>, told the group\u2019s AGM in Paris in May <\/a>that he had encouraged\u00a0UMG management to reject\u00a0a $64.4B offer from Bill Ackman\u2019s Pershing Square.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Paris Court of Appeal ruled on Wednesday that French tycoon Vincent Bollor\u00e9 and his Bollor\u00e9 Group do…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[31827,5791,5,30,13259],"class_list":["post-47989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-paris","tag-bolloru00e9-group","tag-canal","tag-france","tag-paris","tag-vivendi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}