[JURIST] A jury in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] Friday found giant French entertainment corporation Vivendi SA [official website] liable [Dow Jones report] on 57 counts of violating US federal securities laws. The jury found that Vivendi SA had made material misstatements [Bloomberg report] regarding its financial health in 2001-2002 before a three-way merger with Seagram Co. and Canal Plus [corporate website, in French], and that investors who brought stock relying on those misstatements later lost money after its stock price fell. Jean-Marie Messier [BBC profile], Vivendi SA's former CEO, and Guillaume Hannezo, the former finance director, were found not liable by the same jury. Vivendi SA has said that it will appeal [press release] the verdict. The company said:

Vivendi believes that there are many grounds for appeal, including, but not limited to the Court’s decision to include French shareholders in the class, its rulings on jurisdiction and the plaintiffs’ erroneous method of proving and calculating damages, as well as the numerous incorrect rulings made during the course of the trial. Furthermore, Vivendi believed, and continues to believe strongly, that it did nothing wrong and that this case raises significant legal issues for foreign corporations doing business in the United States that need to be definitively resolved.