Viacom Director Salerno says board will contest removal attempt

Thomson ReutersA woman exits the Viacom Inc. headquarters in New York

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Viacom Inc’s independent directors will fight any attempt to remove them from the media company’s board, Lead Independent Director Fred Salerno said in a letter to shareholders on Monday.

Salerno said the directors are facing a removal attempt “as a result of a chain of actions said to have been legally put in motion by the controlling shareholder of Viacom, Sumner Redstone.”

Salerno said the board finds the assertion “inexplicable” that Redstone was “acting of his own free will and with the mental competency to do so.”

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak and Jessica Toonkel; Editing by Tiffany Wu)

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