Agreement broken after conflict between Sony-Zee regarding this big cricket deal

Before the merger deal between Sony and Zee fell apart, the two could not agree on more than 20 compliance issues, which mainly included disputes related to some Russian assets and the $1.4 billion Disney Cricket rights deal. Reuters has given this important information after reviewing confidential emails.

It is reported that the talks between Sony's legal and merger acquisition case officers in India and Los Angeles with the top executives of Zee could not reach a clear result. After which the Japanese firm decided to withdraw from the $10 billion merger deal on January 22.

It has been said in the report that between December 20 and January 9, a series of emails were sent between the two parties. Information was received from these email messages that the officials of the companies accused each other of not fulfilling the commitments related to the merger. Zee officials kept repeating again and again that nothing wrong was done on their part. However, there was no response from Zee or Sony officials regarding this.

The Zee-Sony merger creates a strong Indian TV group with more than 90 channels related to sports entertainment and news, which would compete with companies like Walt Disney and Mukesh Ambani's Reliance. It is believed that the breakdown of this deal has dealt a major blow to India's leading TV network Zee, which started in 1992. Since the cancellation of this deal, Zee's shares have fallen by about 27 percent.

Sriram Subramanian, founder of InGovern, a consultant firm that voices the interests of investor rights, says that mutual funds, which hold 96 percent stake in Zee, and other investors do not know why the deal fell apart, because no information was shared by the company, whereas investors have every right to know about the developments.

Emails sent by both the parties reveal that there were differences between Sony and Zee regarding four Russian supporting units related to content production and distribution. Because it was decided in the merger agreement that there should be no relationship with units located in any country that comes under the purview of the US ban.