Shareholder says Rustavi 2 TV leadership has plans to bankrupt the channel
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Thursday, July 18
One of the shareholders of Georgia’s leading opposition-minded Rustavi 2 TV channel Nino Nizharadze says that the current leadership of the channel sign “financially unjustified” deals with other companies to accumulate money and later open a new channel.
Nizharadze, who owns nine percent of shares of the channel, has addressed the Georgian Chief Prosecutor’s Office to start an investigation against the channel Director Nika Gvaramia “who signed such deals.”
“One of the agreements was signed with Intermedia advertising agency, which is owned by Misha Mshvildadze, a friend of Gvaramia. The deal says that the company should pay a fixed money for their products, while the income received from the same company based on released products would have been much higher,” Nizharadze’s lawyer says.
Nizharadze believes that the reason for the accumulation of funds in “allied companies” is the upcoming verdict of the European Court of Human Rights on the ownership dispute of Rustavi 2, which is scheduled to be announced today.
She says that if the court rules that the channel should be returned to its former owner, as it was ruled by all three courts of Georgia, the current owners will have resources to open other media outlet.
Nizharadze says that she has already suffered more than 28 million GEL due to the agreements the current leadership of the channel sign.
Rustavi 2 and Nika Gvaramia have been accusing the government of the ‘pressure and attack’ since the Georgian Dream party came to power in 2012.
They say that Nizharadze and the government play the same game to affect the channel and make it silent.
The court dispute over Rustavi 2 started in 2015, when Kibar Khalvashi, a former owner of the TV channel, filed a lawsuit to regain his stocks in Rustavi 2. According to Khalvashi, his company shares were illegally taken away from him by the United National Movement.
The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court of Georgia, which is tasked with solving the most complex cases, made the final decision on the Rustavi 2 TV dispute and granted the assets of the broadcaster to Khalvashi in early March 2017.
However, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) temporarily suspended enforcement of the verdict the next day.
As of now Rustavi 2 is owned by LTD TV Sakartvelo (51%) and brothers Levan (22%) and Giorgi (18%) Karamanishvili.
The businessmen brothers also own 25-25 percent of LTD Sakartvelo. The remaining 50 percent of the LTD belongs to the son of the United National Movement opposition leader Koba Nakopia, Nikoloz Nakopia.
Nizharadze owns the remaining nine percent.
