The four-year court battle of Hollywood-heavyweight agencies is over. Both sides have agreed to settle the lawsuit CAA filed days after UTA poached of several agents in March 2015.
“It’s all over at last, thankfully,” said an agency source close to that matter told Deadline tonight. Attorney Bryan Freedman, who was representing UTA in the long legal tussle, said:
“The matter was resolved, and the state court action, the arbitration and the petitions were all dismissed.”
Details of the settlement, including whether there was a financial component, were not released. But after four years, one can assume somebody picked up the not-inconsiderable tab for legal fees.
The case stemmed from UTA’s town-shocking hires of five senior CAA comedy agents, who brought star clients Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell and Ed Helms and put many others in play. The original multi-claim complaint against UTA and former CAA agents Greg Cavic and Greg McKnight (read it here) sought restraining orders stopping any services to those new clients plus a variety of damages including cash paid to its two former employees “during their period of disloyalty.”
Along with Cavic and McKnight, CAA also lost comedy department cornerstones Jason Heyman, Martin Lesak and Nick Nuciforo, who took with them their colleagues John Sacks, Susie Fox, Joanna Scott, Mackenzie Condon and Chelsea McKinnies.
The lawsuit alleged that Cavic and McKnight delayed meeting and deals for clients so they wouldn’t have to pay commissions and other fees to CAA upon heading out the door to UTA. “Defendants should not be permitted to profit from their illegal and unethical activities,” says the suit, which accused Cavic and McKnight of “working clandestine with each other and UTA” to get the other agents to jump ship.
CAA had sought damages, injunctive relief and restitution as a result of “Defendants’ willful, wanton, and malicious corporate raiding.
