When 500m euro you have to pay, that's not exactly the best way to start the day

Tuesday, 17 September 2013. On the eve of a vote over Silvio Berlusconi's eviction from the Senate of Italy, the Supreme court confirms his family's company has to pay over 500m euro in damages to media rival CIR, owned by De Benedetti family.

Silvio Berlusconi: seeing it coming?

Italy Supreme Court's ruling hasn't been very favourable to Silvio Berlusconi recently, after upholding accusations of tax fraud in the beginning of August, yesterday the Corte Suprema di Cassazione (this is the official name of the court of last resort in Italy) ruled that Berlusconi family’s Fininvest holding company had wrongfully gained control of Mondadori publishing house by bribing a judge (Vittorio Metta is his name) back in 1991, thus they have to pay more than half a million euro to De Benedettis' CIR.

Barbara Berlusconi showing full support
to her father Silvio on Twitter

Actually the court lowered the amount to be paid to 541m euro (which is about £452m or $722m), from €564,2m (as was ruled back in 211). A 4% discount might not help cheering Silvio up, especially today, when he could be removed from his seat in the Italian parliament.

In less that two months the former prime minister of Italy has been labelled as a fraudster and a briber, with no possibility of appeal (at least not in Italy, Berlusconi's lawyers are scouting for new possibilities outside the country).

He has also been convicted for abuse of power and child prostitution (it's the sex scandal involving Ruby the Heartstealer), but the appeal is still pending there. A few days ago Silvio Berlusconi's daughter Barbara Berlusconi gave a “j'accuse interview” to Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, stating that a lobby was trying to get rid of her father. Barbara Berlusconi's support was also proven by a recent photo of herself with her father Silvio tweeted by her Twitter account.

Marina Berlusconi

“We don’t owe a euro to anyone”

It seems he might be running out of luck, it's difficult to make out which way to go (even though Silvio has been receiving quite a large amount of advices, from literally anywhere).

Berlusconi's Fininvest used “deception and corruption” in order to reach their goals, according to the judges.

The boss of Fininvest, Mr Berlusconi’s eldest daughter Marina Berlusconi, burst out: “We don’t owe a euro to anyone”. Let alone to “left leaning media”, she might have thought...

No statemens have been collected from Silvio Berlusconi's girlfriend, Francesca Pascale (a former dancer for a Neapolitan local TV's programme).

Some observers have suggested that Silvio Berlusconi entered politics in 1994 partly in order to to influence the outcome of the ongoing battle between the two entrepreneurs from Milan: himself and Carlo De Benedetti, founder of CIR and his long-time media rival. Mr Berlusconi has always denied he used his political office to help his company and always asserted that the leftists (amongst them De Benedetti) and judges joined forces in an effort to get rid of him.

Mr Berlusconi's has several times stated that he's been fighting the so-called Twenty Years' War against them (a "documentary" was shown on one of his broadcasters, to prove it). If that was the case, the war might be about to end.