EM.TV Wins Court Order to Keep F1 Stake

EM.TV & Merchandising AG said on Monday it had won a court order in Jersey preventing a banking consortium from seizing its stake in the Formula One racing car business.

"This means that the banks are unable to enforce their purported security," EM.TV said in a statement to the German stock market. The court in Jersey, an island in the English Channel, granted EM.TV a preliminary injunction pending its findings in a full court case, it said.

EM.TV currently owns a 16.7 percent stake in the Formula One business, which is controlled by insolvent media group Kirch.

It was forced to pledge its stake to Kirch's banks - BayernLB, J.P. Morgan and Lehman Brothers - when Kirch bailed out EM.TV last year prior to its own insolvency.

The banks, also known collectively as the Formula One banks, last month notified EM.TV they were entitled to a forced sale of the stake, which was pledged to them as collateral when Kirch obtained a $1.6 billion loan from the banks last year.

Earlier on Monday, carmakers and the Formula One banks had cancelled talks about the future of the racing car circuit planned for this week and said they would not resume before next year, a spokesman for carmaker DaimlerChrysler said.

Carmakers have threatened to launch their own racing series if the banks, which would own a total stake of 75 percent in Formula One if they seized both Kirch's and EM.TV's stakes, do not give them more say over organisation and a greater share of the profits.