Court Keeps Alive Battle to Own 'Salt Lake Tribune'

By: (AP) A federal appeals court kept alive a legal fight by the former owners of The Salt Lake Tribune to buy back the newspaper, tossing out a ruling on the value of the paper and sending the case back to a lower court.

A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that a federal judge in Utah had wrongly concluded that an appraisal of the newspaper was binding on the McCarthey group, which sold The Tribune in 1997 but wants to buy it back.

The judges sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart to examine the validity of the $355.5 million price offered to the family.

Philip G. McCarthey, chairman of the group that once managed the newspaper, said he was pleased with the appeals court's ruling.

William Dean Singleton, chief executive of the paper's current owner, MediaNews Group Inc., predicted his side would prevail.

"In ruling on the merits, we feel strongly that the judge will uphold the appraisal process," he said.

The McCarthey group gave up ownership of the newspaper in a stock swap with Telecommunications Inc., which later was acquired by AT&T Corp. MediaNews bought the newspaper from AT&T for $200 million in January 2001, and the McCarthey group is trying to buy it back through a disputed purchase option that was included in the 1997 deal.

The purchase option called for the McCartheys and MediaNews to settle on a price through appraisals commissioned by each side. The appraisals were so far apart, however, they triggered a provision calling for an independent, third-party appraisal.

Attorneys for the McCarthey group had argued that the third appraisal price was based on inaccurate data, and was at least $100 million too high.

The district judge dismissed the McCarthey group's claims, ruling that the appraisal and the process used to reach it amounted to binding arbitration.

The appeals court judges said Stewart had incorrectly applied Utah law, and that the appraisal was not binding because the McCarthey group's company, Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co., did not agree that the appraiser's price would settle the dispute.

The appeals court did not rule on the merits of the McCarthey group's claims about the appraisal.