TimeWarner pays out millions after alleged dirty tricks campaign

LONDON - TimeWarner AOL, the world's largest media group, has paid an estimated $US90m to settle a potentially damaging legal action over an alleged dirty tricks campaign against a rival.

The Independent On Sunday today revealed that Time- Warner settled the case just before it was due to be heard in front of a jury in Brooklyn this month.

The trial would have shone a light on a campaign of violence and bribery alleged to have been launched by a company that at the time was run by two of the US's best-known business leaders, Gerald Levin and Ted Turner.

The case involves Liberty Cable, a small New York entertainment company, which was the first company to use satellite technology rather than underground cable to broadcast movies and news in the early 1990s.

Transmitting programmes via satellite dishes to buildings across the city, Liberty wanted to break TimeWarner Cable's monopoly in New York.

But Liberty quickly suspected that TimeWarner had a plan to destroy the innovative newcomer.

TimeWarner was anxious that if it lost market share in New York, it would lose out in the rest of the country as well.

Liberty quickly built up 26,000 customers in 24 months and secured subscription deals with prestigious New York properties such as The World Trade Center, the Four Seasons Hotel and the General Motors Building.