site.btaТV7 About to Discontinue Broadcasts after Enforcement Agent Seizes Equipment

ТV7 About to Discontinue Broadcasts after Enforcement Agent  Seizes Equipment

Sofia, April 29 (BTA) - TV7 announced Wednesday noon that its
servers will be turned off any time now and it will discontinue
broadcasts. According to the TV channel, a private enforcement
agent and movers arrived at its offices in the morning with an
order to shut down the TV and seize assets that have been
pledged as a collateral for a loan from the failed Corporate
Commercial Bank.

TV7 broadcasts live reports from its offices showing the
enforcement agent with the movers and police. TV7 CEO Kiril
Blagoev said in one of the reports that they came with a list of
the equipment to be seized. "We offered full cooperation. Then
at one point they said they want to turn off the server
regardless of how the assets are arranged in the list. They want
to hit in the heart of the television."

According to TV7's lawyer, Nikolai Hadjigenov, there are some
20-30 police officers which he said was quite unusual as an
enforcement agent would normally be accompanied by no more than
a couple of officers. "This is a television, not a junkies'
hangout. The most dangerous people you would meet here is
reporters with microphones and cameras," he added.

TV7 programming director Ilian Stoimenov said that the servers
have copyrighted products and taking them away will be
tantamount to a theft.

According to the television, the enforcement agent sent to
collect the pledged equipment is not on the list of private
enforcement agents.

According to Kiril Blagoev, "if TV7 loses these computers, it
will use others to continue broadcasting".

TV7 is one of the four Bulgarian TV operators with national
coverage and is considered to be close to businessman and former
Corpbank owner Tsvetan Vassilev. Its financial woes started
when Corpbank was placed under special supervision and
discontinued all payments in June 2014. The TV operator had its
assets distrained last year and is now run by a receiver.

Media reports from TV7 see in the attempted shutdown a new page
in the conflict between Tsvetan Vassilev and Movement for Rights
and Freedoms deputy Delyan Peevski.