Saying in a filing to a Canadian appeals court, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) said that the lower court in their decision to allow the acquisition of the Canwest TV Unit by Shaw Communications (TSE:SJRb) “utterly failed in its duty to ensure that basic principles of fair play and procedural due process.”
Goldman Sachs is asking the court to overturn the lower court decision and allow them to get another chance at acquiring the Canwest TV division of the company.
Leading a consortium of partners, Goldman Sachs did enter the bidding process for the Canwest unit late, possibly having a negative effect on the ruling of the lower court. Members of the founding family of Canwest were part of the Goldman bid, which was significantly higher than the bid by Shaw.
Goldman’s bid was for 32 percent of the assets of the company for C$120 million.
The Canwest TV unit is currently in bankruptcy protection, and Goldman has a stake in the company already when it aided the company in acquiring several TV channels from Alliance Atlantic in 2007.
From the beginning of the bankruptcy, Goldman has complained strong and bitterly that they’ve been left out of the process they have a legal right to be involved in.
To show the commitment of Goldman to pursue the matter, they asserted in no uncertain terms they would “continue down a path of acrimonious and time-consuming litigation,” if the appeals court didn’t intervene in the situation.
The specialty TV channels being pursued by Goldman are profitable, in contrast to the general TV holdings of Canwest, which seems to be the primary driver behind their desire to retain them in their fold.
