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FilmFour, a unit of Channel 4, is being sued for £6m (E8.7 million) according to Eurofilm & Media Ltd, a subsidiary of Germany's Senator Entertainment group. Senator is one of Germany's leading film producers, which says it has launched the action.

According to Eurofilm in 1999 it entered into an agreement with FilmFour to co-finance a series of at least 21 feature films as part of a long-term partnership to develop high quality films. Productions released under the agreement included "Charlotte Gray", "Crush" and "Lucky Break".

But, says Eurofilm, in July 2002 when Channel Four suddenly announced that it was closing its distribution and international sales arms, as well as slashing its production budget it failed to make payments due under the deal to Eurofilm from world sales revenues that FilmFour had already received.