to download the 2012 registration document. - Groupe M6

RISK FACTORS AND MANAGEMENTM6 Group disputes the validity of these claims.A judgment concerning 22 participants, in favour of M6, was delivered by an Industrial Tribunal inNanterre (Conseil des Prud’hommes de Nanterre) on 30 March 2012, finding that the candidates did nothave an employment contract but had a contract to participate in a gameshow, and therefore excludingthem from the jurisdiction of the Industrial Tribunal in favour of the jurisdiction of the Regional Court(Tribunal de Grande Instance).The 22 candidates made an objection to the Court of Appeal which gave its ruling on 12 February 2013.The Versailles Court of Appeal decided on these disputes in accordance with current case law andacknowledged that each candidate had an employment contract.Nevertheless, these rulings are not final since Studio 89 Productions, the producer of the programmesconcerned, has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court in relation to these 22 claims.Despite this case law against television channels and production companies, it is important to note that ajudgment in favour of the M6 Group relating to 7 participants in the programme Pékin Express wasreturned on 13 March 2013 by the Industrial Tribunal of Nanterre, which reiterated that it had nojurisdiction in view of the fact that Pékin Express was an audiovisual gameshow and that the plaintiffs hadnot provided proof of the existence of an employment contract.The 7 candidates will also be able to appeal to the Versailles Court of Appeal.The other submissions are awaiting trial or consideration by the Boulogne-Billancourt Industrial Tribunal(Conseil de Prud’hommes de Boulogne-Billancourt).b) Notification of complaint by the Competition AuthorityOn 7 January 2009, stakeholders to the CanalSat TPS merger transaction that created Canal + Francereceived a notification of complaint from the French Competition Authority, which has since become theCompetition Authority, as the Committee’s Reporting Secretary considered that certain clauses of theagreement entered into by the two parties could be criticised in light of Competition regulations. In itsruling of 16 November 2010, the French Competition Authority considered that it was not its role to callinto question the exclusivity and non-competition clauses concluded between Canal + Distribution andM6 Group, which had been notified to the Ministry for the Economy and which was expressly authorisedby the latter in its decision to authorise the merger between CanalSat and TPS.This decision has not put a complete end to prosecution against Canal Plus, TF1, Métropole Télévisionand Lagardère, since the Authority claimed jurisdiction to examine, as part of the transfer to theexamining judge, exclusivity clauses relative to optic fibre and catch-up TV services concluded betweenCanal + Distribution and M6 Group, which, in the Authority’s opinion, were not included in the ruling ofthe Ministry for the Economy. This ruling by the Competition Authority was subject to an appeal beforethe Court of Appeal of Paris by France Telecom. M6 Group communicated with this court at its owninitiative. France Télécom finally withdrew this last claim, which was acknowledged by the Court ofAppeal of Paris in its ruling of 8 December 2011. The appeals procedure remains on-going.Although the M6 Group disputes the merits of this procedure, it cannot rule out the possibility of having afinancial penalty imposed on it.In addition, in a ruling dated 20 September 2011, the Competition Authority stated that the Canal PlusGroup had not honoured several commitments taken under the Minister for the Economy, Finance andIndustry’s ruling of 30 August 2006, which authorised the acquisition of TPS by Vivendi Universal andCanal+.The Authority thus fined CANAL + and withdrew its authorisation; Canal+ had to submit the requestagain. As an interested party (distribution of the Group’s channels), M6 Group participated in theAuthority’s market tests in 2012. The Competition Authority authorised the acquisition in a decision dated23 July 2012. The CANAL+ Group having lodged appeals against these two decisions, M6 Groupbecame a voluntary third party to this action. In two rulings dated 21 December 2012, the Conseil d’Etatdefinitively upheld the aforementioned decisions of the Competition Authority, as well as the injunctionstaken out against the Canal + Group companies for a minimum duration of five years, thus guaranteeingminimal protection as regards distribution of independent channels, including those of M6 Group.126 - M6 GROUP - 2012 REGISTRATION DOCUMENT