MP & Silva Group Lawsuit: Fraud Claim Rejected, Appeal Pending

The main lawsuit arising from the MP & Silva collapse, a $715 million fraud claim brought by Chinese buyer Jinxin Inc against co-founder Riccardo Silva, former CEO Marco Auletta, and Silva’s holding company, was dismissed in full by London’s High Court on March 31, 2026. Mr. Justice Robin Knowles found that the buyers had not proved the sellers acted dishonestly when they sold a 65 percent stake in the sports media rights agency in 2016. A separate compulsory liquidation of MP & Silva, run by PwC since October 2018, continues to work through creditor claims led by FIFA.¹

How the Dispute Arose

In May 2016, Riccardo Silva and Andrea Radrizzani sold a 65 percent stake in MP & Silva to a consortium led by Chinese state-owned Everbright Securities and Beijing Baofeng Technology. The buying vehicle, Jinxin Inc, had been incorporated three months earlier for the transaction. The share purchase agreement valued the 65 percent stake at $715 million.¹

Within two years the company was gone. It cycled through three chief executives, lost major contracts, and fell behind on rights-fee payments, with Italy’s Serie A pursuing nearly €38 million in unpaid fees.² The French Tennis Federation petitioned to wind it up, and in October 2018 the High Court ordered MP & Silva into compulsory liquidation. Joint liquidators from PwC were appointed on October 19, 2018.³

Jinxin filed suit in London’s Commercial Court in 2021, seeking to unwind the 2016 deal on the basis that the sellers had induced it through fraud. The claim was framed as both deceit and unlawful means conspiracy.⁴

What Jinxin Alleged

The buyers built their case on four categories of alleged misrepresentation. They claimed the sellers had misrepresented the legality of MP & Silva’s business, alleging media rights had been obtained through bribery and corruption. They said the sellers had mischaracterized the agency’s relationship with Serie A. They alleged Silva had downplayed the scope of a criminal investigation in Milan that involved him. And they said the EBITDA figures and financial forecasts provided during due diligence were inaccurate and inflated.¹

Why the Court Rejected the Fraud Claim

The trial ran from June through October 2025.⁴ In his March 2026 judgment, Justice Knowles worked through each category and found that the representations Jinxin pointed to were either never made in the form alleged, were not actually false, or were not known to be false by the defendants at the time. He concluded that Jinxin “did not understand” the business it was acquiring, and that the company’s eventual collapse owed to its inherent fragility and dependence on key personnel and specific relationships rather than to any deception by the sellers.⁵

The credibility findings were not uniformly kind to the defendants. Justice Knowles found that Silva had exercised “detailed control” over the company and its messaging, and characterized portions of his testimony as “not convincing.” He found that Auletta had more knowledge of the commercial side of the business than he admitted. But falling short of candor is not the same as fraud. To prove deceit under English law, Jinxin had to show a false representation made knowingly, intended to be acted upon, and that actually caused the buyer’s loss. It did not clear that bar on any of the four grounds.¹

The Whole Agreement Clause

The share purchase agreement contained a “Whole Agreement” clause in which the parties waived reliance on pre-contractual representations. That clause cannot exclude liability for fraud, but Justice Knowles noted it reinforced the expectation that sophisticated commercial parties conduct thorough due diligence and allocate risk through the contract itself, rather than relying on verbal assurances.⁵

Appeal Status

As of mid-2026, no appeal by Jinxin has been publicly announced.⁶

The Parallel Liquidation

The Jinxin judgment did not close the book on MP & Silva. PwC’s joint liquidators, Zelf Hussain and David Baxendale, continue to run the wind-down. Preferential creditors were paid in full in July 2019, receiving £69,580. Unsecured creditors face a far bleaker outcome, with the liquidators forecasting a return of 5.5 to 7.0 pence per pound owed.³

The single largest claim in the liquidation is FIFA’s, at roughly £130 million, about 71 percent of all claims filed. It relates to an agreement covering marketing rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in the Italian market. Because the underlying contract is governed by Swiss law, the liquidators retained a Swiss legal firm to assess its merits, and that adjudication is ongoing. A former company director has separately raised concerns about the claim’s validity that the liquidators are also reviewing. Around 50 claims have been formally admitted, valued at over £26 million, with 16 more under review. The liquidators have said they are preparing for a first and final distribution to unsecured creditors within six to twelve months of their October 2025 report.³

Regulatory Investigations Still Open

Civil dismissal does not resolve the regulatory picture. In February 2022, Brazil’s competition authority, CADE, opened an administrative proceeding into an alleged international cartel involving broadcasting rights for sporting events. The investigation covers conduct estimated to have occurred from 2008 to 2017 and involves eight companies and 37 individuals, with allegations of price-fixing, bid-rigging, market division, and the exchange of competitively sensitive information.⁷ The MP & Silva liquidators have acknowledged the proceedings may involve the company.³

MP & Silva has also been the subject of a tax inquiry by HM Revenue and Customs, and the European Commission has investigated anti-competitive behavior within the group. The outcomes of those inquiries have not been publicly disclosed.³

1
UK Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. Jinxin Inc v Aser Media & Ors, EWHC 765 (Comm)
2
SportsPro. MP Silva Chinese Owners Radrizzani Silva
3
PwC. MP & Silva Joint Liquidators Fourth Remuneration Report
4
3VB Barristers. Anne Jeavons
5
Signature Litigation. Kate Gee and Oliver Steeple Discuss Jinxin Inc v Auletta & Ors in Global Relay Intelligence Practice
6
Signature Litigation. Kate Gee and Oliver Steeple Discuss Jinxin Inc v Auletta & Ors in the Law Society Gazette
7
Government of Brazil – CADE. CADE Investigates International Cartel of Broadcasting Rights for Sporting Events