Former senior executives of RR Media claim that before the company was acquired by SES, the company paid under the table bribes to various agents and organisations.
These claims are the answer of former RR Media (now MX1) executives Shmuel Koren, Shlomi Izkovitz and Rami Goldberg, in a court case, which was launched last December. Munich-based MX1 alleges its former managers stole its customers.
According to the Globes website, the defense statement says, “Following the demands of parent company SES prior to completion of the merger process, bribes paid under the table by the plaintiff to agents and other organisations close to customers, which ‘took care’ of continued dealings between the sides, were reduced (and sometimes stopped). Consequently many customers stopped their dealings with the plaintiff, although after the merger the bribery payments continued by it. Other customers stopped their dealings with the company after they learned about the bribes paid in order to create/maintain dealings.”
In answer to these claims, the law firm that represents SES/MX1 said in a statement: “Now that they have been found out, the defendants are attempting to throw mud at the CEO and his good name, through allegations, that as well as being completely false, are irrelevant to the case and are simply being claimed for the sake of publicity.
It is regrettable to see how senior employees choose to behave after years in which they were generously remunerated and even earned handsome bonuses for the sale of control (in the company).”
MX1 is the result of a merger between SES Platform Services and RR Media. In Feburary 2016, SES Platform Services GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of SES S.A. has agreed to merge RR Media’s operations with those of SES Platform Services. SES acquired RR Media for $13.291 per share, leading to an enterprise value of $242.2 million.