The Provincial Court of Madrid has ordered media group Prisa to pay Spanish broadcaster Mediapro a total of €51 million in damages in the latest ruling handed down in a long-running dispute over football content rights.
The 12-year legal conflict between the two companies, which came to be dubbed ‘the football war’, kicked off after Prisa accused Mediapro of breach of contract for signing deals directly with football clubs from La Liga, and cut the signal to its customers back in 2007.
The country’s Supreme Court finally accepted the appeal lodged by Mediapro in 2015, prompting the broadcaster to seek damages for lost exploitation rights.
“The sentence reconfirms the good name of Mediapro in what became known as ‘the football war’ and the illegality of Prisa’s claims, which, after almost ten years of litigation, have been penalized by the Courts time and time again. The sentence establishes that the interim measures applied by Court 36 allowed Prisa to exploit rights owned by Mediapro, thus depriving Mediapro of exploitation rights and incurring damages amounting to €51 million,” Mediapro said in a press statement.
Prisa is currently evaluating all possible legal actions in response to the latest judgment, according to local press reports.
