Milan, October 3 2009 – The ruling of the Milan Law Court was recorded today in the civil action filed by CIR, assisted by legal counsel Prof. Vincenzo Roppo and Elisabetta Rubini, against Fininvest for damages caused by the corruption of a judge in the Mondadori affair (Lodo Mondadori). The judgement, which is enforceable, rules that:

• CIR has the right to receive compensation from Fininvest for the patrimonial damage from the “missed opportunity” of an impartial verdict, which can be quantified in the sum of euro 749,955,611.93;
• CIR also has the right to receive compensation from Fininvest for the damage of a non-patrimonial nature suffered in the same affair. The settlement of these damages will be made in a separate ruling.

In this way, after the definitive Criminal Court sentence for corruption in 2007, the Civil Court has also shed light on an affair that inflicted huge damage on CIR, while at the same time offending the fundamental values which underpin the correct functioning of the market and of the institutions.   CIR would like to express its satisfaction with this ruling which brings justice to the company and to its shareholders. Mr Carlo De Benedetti, honorary Chairman of CIR, has issued the following statement: “After almost twenty years since the fraudulent action that caused our Group to lose its legitimate ownership of Mondadori and following the verdict which confirmed definitively in the Criminal Court that a judge had been corrupted, at last we have justice in the Civil Court as well. The ruling of the Milan Law Court, recorded today, which awards compensation of 750 million euro to CIR for the patrimonial damage it suffered, does not in any way make up for my not being able to implement the business plan which would have created the first publishing group in Italy, but it has established unequivocally that the action that prevented me from doing so was illegal.” *** Note: this is a translation into English of the original press release in Italian.