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CBS Corp. has declared war on its controlling shareholder, suing Shari Redstone and her family’s National Amusements Inc. holding company for trying to force CBS to merge with Viacom Inc.
The lawsuit is a move by the media company and its independent directors to reject the suggested merger, prevent Redstone from retaliating against the board for refusing the deal, and reduce National Amusements’ voting power.
Filed Monday in the Chancery Court in Delaware, the suit seeks to block National Amusements and its president, Redstone, from forcing a recombination of CBS and Viacom , which are both controlled by the Redstones. Shari Redstone has been advocating such a combination over the past two years.
CBS and the five independent directors on its special committee say they filed the suit to prevent National Amusements, media mogul Sumner Redstone and his daughter Shari “from breaching their fiduciary duties and harming the Company and its public stockholders.”
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