Court dismisses challenges to News Corp.&#39

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge summarily rejected legal challenges to News Corp.’s 2005 acquisition of Intermix Media Inc., then parent company of the lifestyle portal MySpace.

The legal challenges had been spearheaded by Brad Greenspan, the former chairman and CEO of Euniverse (renamed Intermix Media by the new management), who was ousted by Euniverse’s board of directors in 2003, nearly two years before the acquisition, while MySpace was still in its infancy and in beta testing.

On Friday, Oct. 6, Superior Court Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl fully dismissed Greenspan’s and the other former shareholders’ challenges to the News Corp. acquisition, finding that the acquisition was lawful and ratified by the fully informed vote of a majority of the Intermix shareholders.

“News Corp. and Fox Interactive Media feel vindicated by Judge Kuhl’s ruling and have always believed that this is merely a situation of unchecked envy leading to a loss of common sense,” said Mike Angus, General Counsel of News Corp.’s Fox Interactive Media. “We hope this ruling will finally put an end to Mr. Greenspan’s repeated and unsubstantiated attacks and look forward to focusing our attention on continuing to strategically grow our business.”

Richard Rosenblatt, the former CEO of Intermix and former chairman of MySpace, who replaced Greenspan, responded to the ruling, saying: “I have exercised great restraint in not responding to Mr. Greenspan’s baseless and defamatory claims about the propriety of the News Corp. acquisition and my role in the transaction, with the expectation of being vindicated by a court of law. Lost in all the rhetoric is that we delivered to the shareholders, including Mr. Greenspan, a nearly 700% increase in stock price.”