Leo Kirch is suing Deutsche Bank's chief Rolf Breuer for precipitating the collapse of his media empire.

The 75-year old company founder claims that Mr Breuer caused KirchMedia's insolvency by publicly calling into question the financial status of the group in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in New York.

According to Mr Kirch's lawyers, Mr Breuer's comments comprised a serious betrayal of business secrets and unauthorised disclosure about the Kirch group's credit lines.

Mr Kirch claims this made subsequent refinancing negotiations much more difficult and is claiming 100m euro in damages.

The main unit of the Kirch media empire was declared insolvent last month, with the wider group expected to sink shortly.

Repayment demands

The collapse of KirchMedia is Germany's biggest corporate collapse since World War II, putting thousands of jobs and a string of television channels at risk.

The whole group now looks likely to melt down altogether thanks to Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB.

BSkyB has a 22% stake in the KirchPayTV operation, which sought protection from its creditors earlier this month.

But it has now decided to sell this stake back to Taurus Holding, the holding company which has acted as the fulcrum for the Kirch Group, ruling out speculation that BSkyB might run the TV operation itself.

And it is demanding the media conglomerate repay 1.7bn euros, money Kirch does not have.

Industry sources have told Reuters news agency that this is likely to push Taurus Holding into bankruptcy.