(Paris) The Court of Cassation annulled the compensation of 6 million euros ($8 million) that the C8 channel had been ordered to pay to the companies of Thierry Ardisson for the sudden cessation of its broadcast Hello Earthlings! in 2019, according to a decision of which AFP was aware.
Posted at 12:47 p.m.
In this judgment dated October 19, the Court of Cassation partially overturns a judgment on appeal rendered a year ago, and refers the case to the Court of Appeal, which will have to rule again on these amounts.
The Court did not call into question the fact that Thierry Ardisson’s companies were victims of a “sudden termination of commercial relations” on the part of C8, a channel of the Canal+ group, but only the amount of compensation.
In essence, it considered that the Paris Court of Appeal had arrived at such sums on the basis of an erroneous calculation.
“The responsibility of the Canal + group in my eviction has been recognized. […]Today, it is only a question of evaluation of the allowances ”, reacted Thierry Ardisson, questioned by AFP.
Asked by AFP, C8 declined to comment.
In September 2021, the Paris Court of Appeal ordered C8 to pay 3,800,476 euros to Ardis, Thierry Ardisson’s production company, and 2,293,657 euros to Télé Paris, the service provider who filmed the shows and whose he owns nearly half of the shares. C8 had appealed in cassation.
Mr. Ardisson had launched his show Hello Earthlings! on Canal + in 2006 before migrating to C8 in 2016. The show was stopped in 2019, after the host refused to provide his shows for half the price.
At first instance, in January 2020, the Canal+ group channel was ordered by the Paris Commercial Court to pay 811,500 euros to Thierry Ardisson for “brutal termination of commercial relations”.
The host, who claimed 6.8 million euros, had decided to appeal this decision.