This is an update to my Jan. 17 post about presidential candidate and media mogul Badri Patarkatsishvili.
The court may have found yet another problem with Patarkatsishvili’s long-hounded broadcast company, Imedi TV — the fact that he might have illegally retained some ownership of it while campaigning for president.
After Patarkatsishvili announced his bid for the presidency in October, he claimed he would sell his shares of national broadcaster Imedi TV to its co-owner, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
But according to an article on EurasiaNet.org, documents submitted to the Georgian National Communications Commission in December indicate that News Corp has no ownership of Imedi TV. News Corp is listed as its management company.
Instead, the company belongs to I-media, a joint stock company owned by two companies, JMG Consulting and Universal, Ltd.
The hairy thing about that is that 15 percent of JMG Consulting is owned by the Badri Patarkatsishvili Fund charity, quite conceivably owned by Patarkatsishvili.
According to the article, “Under Georgian broadcasting law, neither administrative organs or political parties – and representatives of political organizations – can own a broadcasting license.”
The station, which has been under investigation, has had its license suspended, and the Tbilisi City Court has frozen Patarkatsishvili’s assets.
Imedi TV was originally shut down on charges that Patarkatsishvili was using it to “incite unrest.” You can read background on the issue in an article from the online magazine “Civil Georgia.”
Tags: Badri Patarkatsishvili, broadcasting, Georgia, Imedi TV, News Corp, presidential election, Rupert Murdoch
