Ownership Issue
A preliminary agreement on the purchase of Imedi Holding’s shares was signed in New York on April 28, 2007, details of which remained confidential. At some point it was owned by I-Media, which had given power of attorney over 100% of its Imedi shares to News Corp. Europe, and its board chairman was Badri Patarkatsishvili.
After Patarkatsishvili's death in February 2008, the issue of ownership of the Imedia Media Holding again came to a public attention. Joseph Kay, alias Joseph Kakalashvili, a stepson of Patarkatsishvili’s aunt announced that he had bought Imedi TV from Gogi Jaoshvili, reportedly a close friend of Patarkatsishvili, who owned 70% of JMG, a company with a 65% stake in I-Media, which is the founder and 100% owner of Imedi TV. According to papers submitted to the Georgian National Communications Commission (GNCC) by Imedi TV in December 2007, the remaining 35% of the I-Media shares are owned by Universal, a firm founded by three relatives of Patarkatsishvili. Kay claimed that Patarkatsishvili had asked him shortly before his death "to take care of Imedi" and pledged to "restore the face it had before Badri Patarkatsishvili went into politics." He also rejected the allegations voiced by some Georgian opposition politicians that the authorities were in fact behind the deal.
The ownership dispute was settled following an agreement between the Patarkatsishvili family and the government of Georgia in July 2011. The Patarkatsishvili family renounced all claims to the ownership of Imedi TV.
Imdefi TV has since been criticized for being pro-governmental. The station manager Giorgi Arveladze is the country's former economics minister and a longtime friend of President Mikhail Saakashvili.
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