WINNIPEG – Two former partners of the late Israel Asper are suing the company he founded, the Canadian Press reported this weekend.
“Seymour Epstein and Paul Morton have filed a statement of claim against CanWest Global, Asper’s estate and other related parties, alleging that Asper and the rapidly expanding CanWest Global orchestrated business dealings to unfairly benefit CanWest Global and Asper’s interests,” says the CP report.
Those dealings, the statement of claim alleges, were at the expense of Epstein and Morton’s interests and those of CanWest Broadcasting, in which Epstein and Morton were directors and minority shareholders, continues the story.
CanWest Global denies the claim and is countersuing.
This follows an earlier and widely publicized legal dispute that began in 1986, when Epstein and Morton sold their interest in Global TV to Asper’s CanWest Global for about $131 million. By 1990, that left Asper in control of the company which has now grown into an international broadcaster (with assets in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland) and Canada’s largest newspaper publisher.
“Epstein and Morton, who were directors and minority shareholders of that company allege in the lawsuit that CanWest Global terminated CanWest Broadcasting’s various contracts for programming, management, ad sales and other essential services. It then replaced them with more costly non-arm’s-length contracts with CanWest Global and its subsidiaries,” continues the CP report.
In a statement of defence and counterclaim filed last month, CanWest Global claims CanWest Broadcasting functioned as an independent company, and that Epstein, Morton and the companies with which they were associated benefited financially from CanWest Global’s actions, the story concludes.
