PARIS (AFP) — Prosecutors have been given a report by financial investigators which sharply criticises Vivendi Universal's accounting practices under former CEO Jean-Marie Messiere, La Tribune reported on Wednesday.
The report denounces "aggressive" bookkeeping involving "sophisticated legal and financial engineering," the financial daily said.
The report has been turned over to financial prosecutors Henri Pons and Jean-Marie d'Huy, La Tribune added.
The probe was opened in 2002 following a complaint by an association of small investors.
Messier, who was forced out as head of the French media and telecommunications group in 2002, was fined one million euros by France's stock market regulator in 2005 for having failed to properly inform the market and shareholders between 2000 and 2002.
The fine was reduced to 500,000 euros on appeal, with a one-million-euro fine on Vivendi Universal slashed to 300,000 euros.
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