Argentina's government told the country's largest media conglomerate on Monday that it has begun a process to break up the company and auction off its media licenses.
Grupo Clarin is one of the government's leading critics and has battled with President Cristina Fernandez for years. Fernandez argues that it is a corporate monopoly and has funded a booming network of pro-government newspapers and stations to challenge Clarin's dominance.
Martin Sabbatella, the head of the government media regulation body, said in Monday that the government will make the conglomerate and other companies comply with the law, which bars any company from owning too many different media properties.
It comes after a court ruled Friday that a three-year-old law against media monopolies is constitutional.
"We notified them of the start of the transfer of licenses because the law is constitutional," Sabbatella said at an impromptu press conference outside of Grupo Clarin's headquarters in Buenos Aires.
The process, which will end up with transfer of licenses, will last about 100 days. During this time, the media empire must take care of all its current holdings and keep all jobs, Sabbatella said.
Grupo Clarin said in a e-mailed statement that the government's action is illegal and tramples on past rulings that favored the media group.
"It's totally inadmissible and illegal because it openly violates several legal rulings," Clarin said.
Clarin has said the judge's declaration lifting all injunctions in the case violates court procedures. The media group says a higher court had stayed the divestment requirement until the justice system rules definitively on challenges to the law.
The 2009 law was tweaked in Congress to specifically target Clarin, the only company that runs afoul of all its major anti-monopoly clauses. The law could require Clarin to sell off broadcast licenses as well as its majority stake in Cablevision, the cable TV network that has become the company's cash cow.
Clarin has been at odds with the government since it criticized President Cristina Fernandez's handling of a tax on the key agricultural industry and a massive farmers strike in 2008.
Since then, critics of Fernandez's government say she's been out to break up the media empire.
The government has sent tax agents to raid the offices of Argentina's most-read daily and suggested that the owner of Clarin could have adopted her children from babies stolen during the military regime.
It has also tried to gain control of Argentina's only newsprint maker and encouraged the national soccer association to break its contract with a cable TV channel owned by Clarin.
Clarin says the government it out to stifle the press, while Fernandez's administration argues that the broadcast overhaul will grant more air space to community and church groups.
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Associated Press Writer Luis Andres Henao in Santiago, Chile contributed to this report.