Probe slams Vivendi's aggressive accounting: newspaper

0 Comments | AFP, January, 2008

PARIS (AFP) — Prosecutors have been given a report by financial investigators which sharply criticises Vivendi Universal's accounting practices under former CEO Jean-Marie Messiere, La Tribune reported on Wednesday.

The report denounces "aggressive" bookkeeping involving "sophisticated legal and financial engineering," the financial daily said.

The report has been turned over to financial prosecutors Henri Pons and Jean-Marie d'Huy, La Tribune added.

The probe was opened in 2002 following a complaint by an association of small investors.

Messier, who was forced out as head of the French media and telecommunications group in 2002, was fined one million euros by France's stock market regulator in 2005 for having failed to properly inform the market and...