MILAN, Oct 3 (Reuters) - The Italian holding company CIR SpA said on Saturday that a court had ordered Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest to pay it 750 million euros ($1.1 billion) in damages for bribing a judge in a 1990s takeover battle.
The case revolves around a 1991 ruling in which a Rome court effectively enabled Fininvest, owned by the Berlusconi family, to acquire a controlling stake in the Mondadori publishing house from CIR, controlled by Berlusconi's arch-rival, Carlo de Benedetti.
In 2007 a criminal court found Berlusconi's former lawyer Cesare Previti guilty of bribing one of the two judges in 1991 to rule in favour of Fininvest. Berlusconi himself was cleared of responsibility.
"Almost 20 years after the fraudulent action of the Italian publishing company Mondadori, and following the verdict that confirmed definitively in a criminal court that a judge had been corrupted, at last we have justice in the civil court as well," de Benedetti, now CIR's honorary chairman, said in a statement.
Fininvest said it would appeal against the latest judgment once the court's detailed reasoning was available, according to a statement cited by the news agency Ansa. (Writing by Nigel Tutt; Editing by Kevin Liffey)