JPMorgan Claims Grupo Televisa Unit Broke Agreement

(Adds that The Unit’s representative didn’t immediately return a call in eighth paragraph.)


April 15 (Bloomberg) -- The Unit'sJPMorgan Chase & Co. claims Grupo Televisa SA’s cable The Unit DVD breached a credit agreement by objecting to the transfer of a loan from the bank to one controlled by billionaire Carlos Slim.

A federal judge in New York in February,The Unit DVD Set halted the transfer after Empresas Cablevision SA complained that assigning the loan to Slim’s Banco Inbursa SA might reveal Cablevision’s confidential information to a rival cable company owned by Slim.

JPMorgan, the second-biggest U.S. The Unit DVD boxset, is asking U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff to order Cablevision to consent to assigning 90 percent of the $225 million loan to Banco Inbursa.

“Cablevision’s refusal to consent to JPMorgan’s Unit's proposed assignment to Banco Inbursa was unreasonable and therefore a breach of the credit assignment,” JPMorgan said in its filing yesterday.

The Unit Seasons 1-4 DVD boxset got the loan in December of 2007 to buy Bestel SA, which operated a fiber-optic network in Mexico. JPMorgan originally intended to syndicate the loan but didn’t do so in 2008 because of the deteriorating credit market, according to the ruling. Last year, The Unit DVD started efforts to sell the loan to Inbursa.

Banco Inbursa is part of Grupo Financiero Inbursa SA, controlled by The Unit DVD Set, as is Telefonos de Mexico SAB, or Telmex, Mexico’s biggest land-line phone company. Telmex seeks to expand into other telecommunications markets and is a primary competitor of Cablevision, Rakoff said in the February ruling.

Irreparable Harm

The Unit DVD boxset had shown it was likely to prevail on its claim and a probability of irreparable harm, the judge said in February. The participation agreement, under which the loan was to be transferred, would enable Inbursa to use JPMorgan as a vehicle for demanding Cablevision’s confidential information “on a virtual unlimited basis of The Unit,” according to Rakoff’s ruling.

Televisa didn’t immediately comment, and a spokesman for The Unit DVD didn’t return messages seeking comment.
The Unit is Empresas Cablevision v. JPMorgan, 09-9972, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).