Found on the Local Paper<br /><br />Media giant News Corp has confirmed it has settled a case in which it was being sued by US bondholders of the defunct Australis satellite TV network for $6 billion.<br /><br />The company says that terms of the settlement are confidential. However, a source close to the US bondholders has told the Herald that Rupert Murdoch's company - which earlier dismissed the case as "utterly wild" and "a try-on" - had agreed to pay out $US30 million ($51 million).<br /><br />Australis collapsed in 1998, less than three years after it launched Galaxy, Australia's first pay-TV operation. Investors - including Australian and US shareholders and bondholders - and creditors lost more than $1 billion when it went.<br /><br />The case was settled in "early January" but News Ltd made no announcement to the markets or in the media until Monday, after Saturday's Herald carried an extensive report of allegations made by the bondholders in their claim filed in New York's Supreme Court.<br /><br />In the wake of the outcome of the claim, the Australian superannuation industry - which lost tens of millions of dollars of its members' retirement savings in the collapse - is considering the unprecedented step of taking legal action against one of Australia's largest public companies.<br />Mavis Robertson, spokeswoman for organisers of the industry's annual conference, to be held in Hobart next month, said that a team of lawyers from the US firm which ran the case, Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes and Lerach, had agreed to travel to Australia to consult superannuation fund managers and address the conference.<br /><br />"Up until now the funds have been very nervous about taking this sort of action," Ms Robertson said.<br /><br />"However, a number of the larger fund managers are now taking a harder line on proper corporate governance and if there is any prospect of recovering even part of the money by way of legal action either in Australia or the US it will be given serious consideration."<br /><br />The claim filed in the US alleged that News Ltd precipitated the collapse of Australis by "tortious interference" with the network's contract with four of the seven major Hollywood film studios which provided Galaxy with the stream of movies and dramas which it needed for its three channels.<br /><br />Mr Murdoch had teamed up with Telstra - Kerry Packer came on board later - to form Foxtel, Galaxy's major rival. As part of that deal, Telstra provided the lines down which the cable channel was piped into households, and Mr Murdoch was to provide the content.<br /><br />However, because Australis and the third cable TV player, Optus, had tied up all the product available from Hollywood, Mr Murdoch was over a barrel and was forced to buy programming from its rival, Galaxy. That was one of the great deals of modern movie history - the contract tied Mr Murdoch into a 25-year contract worth an estimated $6 billion.<br /><br />The writ claims that at a meeting in Vancouver in December 1997, Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch's son and then head of his operations in Australia, met executives of the four Hollywood studios and they signed an agreement under which they would do everything "practical and lawful" to sabotage Galaxy's contract with the studios.<br /><br />"As part of this campaign," the claim said, "News employed a multitude of predatory practices against Australis, some of which News has previously used to eliminate other rivals in other major media markets."<br /><br />News newspapers ran anti-Galaxy stories, its agents tried to sabotage the company's bond raising by spreading "misleading and disparaging information", and News went to court to block a merger proposal by Australis and to prevent a new bond raising.<br /><br />Five months after the Vancouver meeting, Australis went into receivership, and Australia's first pay-TV network went off the air.<br />My Say!!<br />Not many people know about this but Foxtel entered a contract with GALAXY PAY TV to buy their channels For "X" amount of money for 25 years, the contract was binding and they Foxtel could not Escape this not unless Galaxy Collapses.<br />What they dont Talk about is WHAT ABOUT ALL THE PEOPLE THAT LOST THERE FUCKING GOOD JOB AT GALAXY PAY TV, WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE THAT HAD THEIR CARS?HOUSES REPOSESSED BECAUSE THEY COULD NOT GET A SIMILIAR JOB POSITION ELSEWHERE, DOESN'T ANYONE CARE ABOUT THE POOR PEOPLE, NO NOT FOXTEL AND ITS GREEDY BOSS, "THE FIRST THING YOU LEARN IN BUSINESS YOU FIRST GET RID OF YOUR OPPOSITION<br />Phil<br /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/default/mad.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/default/mad.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/default/mad.gif" /><br /> <br /> <small>[ 06. February 2003, 08:06 PM: Message edited by: P Debono ]</small>

Phil<br />There is a lesson in life DONT TRUST ANYONE or any Government!!!.<br />Look at the days in the US around the Kennedy days, what a disgrace the Kennedy/Hoover/Mafia/and all the other racketeers that were around that era again what a disgrace that a country like the US should have politicians that spend 90% of their time looking for dirt that sticks to smear there opponents.<br />And when it comes to Business its no different anywhere, do you think they give a damm about your personal feelings and your mortgage!!!! you have to be joking Yes GALAXY was deliberately unstabilised so it would collapse Filthy dirty tactics that have been used by the same mob before. <br />Now that the truth has came out all "EX" Galaxy employees should take a class action and Sue who is responsible, and we all know who it is dont we?. <br />As far as I am concerned most big business today use dirty tactics ,they should all go to Hell!!<br />Steve<br /> <br /> <small>[ 07. February 2003, 07:53 PM: Message edited by: ew_289 ]</small>