Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's got more trouble on his hands.
After being found guilty of abuse of office and paying for sex with an underage prostitute back in June, Berlusconi was flooded with negative press, becoming the butt of every "bunga bunga party" joke imaginable. But now, he's got another pressing issue to deal with-his holding company Fininvest SpA's got to fork up 500 million euros (around $668 million) to Compagnie Indestriali Riunite SpA for an issue that arose 22 years ago.
According to Bloomberg, the Italian Supreme Court denied each of Fininvest's disputes of an appeals court ruling, except one.
"This decision isn't justice, it's a slap at justice," Berlusconi's daughter told Bloomberg in an email.
Fininvest was ordered to pay for damages to the CIR firm owned by Carlo De Benedetti-an arch rival of Berlusconi's, Reuters reported. The case originally arose over a battle to buy out publisher Mondadori. Berlusconi's then-lawyer was convicted in 2007 of bribing a judge.
In July 2011, an appeals court handed the victory to CIR, which Fininvest subsequently challenged in the Rome-based Supreme Court.
The ruling comes at a delicate time for the politician, who was slated to announce the restoration of his center-right party, Forza Italia on Tuesday. Now, it looks like Berlusconi will postpone his expected video announcement to Italians until Wednesday, when he hopes the dust from his lawsuit drama will have settled.
Supporters of the former prime minister criticized the ruling harshly. The PDL chamber of deputies floor leader Renato Brunetta, who has been a close comrade of Berlusconi's for years, said that the court's ruling demonstrated "the recurrent surgical timing" leftist judges used to sully Berlusconi's already tainted name.
Reuters reported that some political critics wager Berlusconi also wants to wait to announce his party plans until the media storm over the Costa Concordia cruise liner dies down, so as not to be trumped by the story of the 115,000-ton ship being extracted out of Tuscan waters.
