Mooky Greidinger, the CEO of troubled multinational theatre operator Cineworld, has been given a six-month suspended jail term by a court in Israel.
The company, which has 9,139 screens in 10 countries worldwide including the Regal cinema chain in the U.S., announced the sentence on Monday in a regulatory filing to the London Stock Exchange.
The case involves Forum Film, Cineworld’s Israeli distribution subsidiary and an anti-trust case that relates to Forum’s 2010 merger deal with Matalon. The court fined Forum Film GBP150,000 ($184,000) and held Greidinger indirectly personally responsible for breaches of the merger conditions. For that Greidinger was given a GBP23,000 ($28,300) fine and the six-month prison sentence that is conditional on him having no further anti-trust offences in the next 24 months.
“The judgment is not expected to have any impact on the continued operations of Forum Film Ltd, Cineworld Group plc or Mooky Greidinger’s position as CEO of Cineworld Group,” Cineworld said in a statement.
As both Forum and Matalon had deals in place with the Hollywood studios, the Israeli competition authorities made its approval of the merger deal conditional on all films being made available to any cinema that requested them. The case was brought by the competition authorities which provided evidence that Forum had refused to supply eight movies to a rival cinema chain over a period of ten years.
The court ruled against Cineworld in July, with the penalty to be decided at a later date.
Cinema chains around the world have struggled with operating losses and mounting debt through the COVID pandemic. They remain fragile given the incomplete recovery of the theatrical business in many territories.
Cineworld in September received approval from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas for “first day” relief related to its Chapter 11 proceedings filed on Sept. 7. That allowed it to access some $785 million of an approximate $1.94 billion debtor-in-possession financing facility that, together with its cash reserves and cash provided by operations, was expected to provide sufficient liquidity for Cineworld to “meet its ongoing obligations, including post-petition obligations to vendors and suppliers, as well as employee wages, salaries and benefits programs.”
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