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 says the government cannot take away its licenses because the group lodged an appeal to Friday's ruling before Sabbatella's visit on Monday. A lower court has three days to look at it, and if it is rejected, Clarin can go before an appeals court.
Graciela Romer, a political analyst in Buenos Aires, said the case could eventually go before the Supreme Court and take anywhere from months to years.
"The government says it's in compliance to demand disinvestment and not wait for the deadlines set by the law. That's the point. The government feels like it loses ground if it leaves any room, which leads me to think that this will eventually end up in the Supreme Court," Romer said.
"But this could take from two months to two years and the government needs to resolve this without leaving any breathing room that can get in the way of achieving this historic triumph for freedom of speech, which is how the state has branded its fight with Clarin."
Gregorio Badeni, a constitutional lawyer, agreed that the case could land before the Supreme Court.
"The government cannot force Clarin to disinvest at this moment because the judge's ruling ... has been appealed," Badeni said.
The government says Clarin has 237 licenses but must abide by the law, which allows companies to only have 24 cable licenses and 10 free-to-air licenses for radio and TV, and to cover no more than 35 percent of the pay-per-view population.
Clarin says it has seven radio licenses and four open-TV ones. It also says its TV cable operator Cablevision owns 158 local licenses and that the law's 24 would limit their market.
The media group has been at odds with the government since it criticized Fernandez's handling of a tax on the key agricultural industry and a massive farmers strike in 2008.
