Latest news with #PaulHastings
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
CAA Says It's Got Range On Camera In Trade-Secrets Theft & Talent-Poaching Suit; Uberagency Claims Rival Was 'Fully Aware Of The Legal Risk'
Range Media Partners' founders got caught with their sticky fingers in the CAA trade-secrets cookie jar, the Bryan Lourd-run uberagency claims in an amended complaint to its October 2024 lawsuit. Or put another another way: In the truest of Hollywood litigation tradition, CAA has uncovered what it believes is the smoking gun of smoking guns in the multi-tiered battle with former staffers now at the self-described management company. More from Deadline CAA Finally Goes After 'Unlawful' Range Media Partners For Stealing Confidential Agency Material & Being A Talent Agency In All But Name CAA Vs. Range Takes New Twists With Court Wins & Tactical Shifts As Arbitration Trial Set For Next Month 'The Righteous Gemstones' Edi Patterson Signs With Range Media Partners 'Newly uncovered video footage, documents, photographs, and secret Telegram chats reveal an extensive plot by Range's founders to steal from Creative Artists Agency, LLC, set up an illegal talent agency, and cover up its wrongdoing,' reads a heavily redacted amended complaint filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court by CAA's outside counsel at Paul Hastings. 'This is what we now know,' adds the complaint, which has grown from four to six claims. 'Driven by greed, hubris, the lure of shortcuts, and a willingness to betray trusting colleagues, a small group of then-current and former CAA agents in 2019 began plotting to leave CAA. Over the next months, they began stealing CAA's trade secrets, poaching talent and employees from CAA, designing and operating an unlicensed talent agency, and deliberately and systematically destroying evidence of Range's scheme [redacted].' 'They adopted spy-novel tropes to hide their plan,' CAA alleges of Range's founders — former CAA and eOne exec Peter Micelli, and CAA talent agents Jack Whigham, Michael Cooper, Mick Sullivan and Dave Bugliari — and what ends they went to in order to get their hands on CAA's crown jewels of strategy, technique and of course clients – big clients. 'They used tools to avoid detection and eliminate digital fingerprints, fully aware of the legal risk. Encrypted ephemeral messaging was used to hide their illegal acts, including Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram. They secured and used 'alternate' and 'burner' cell phones.' If this all sounds a bit like teenagers planning a banger of a weekend glamping in the mountains, you are picking up what the parental CAA is saying. Only here, capturing the interest and ambitions of the shifting agency world, the stakes might be a little higher than who brought the edibles and the WiFi hot spot. 'This conduct is illegal under multiple California laws, compelling CAA to take this action,' the suit reads. Today's filing comes almost a full five years after Micelli, Whigham, Cooper, Sullivan and Bugliari were among the well-connected core group that founded Range with big-bucks backing from hedge-fund kingpin and now New York Mets owner Steve Cohen. It also comes about nine months after the Artemis-owned CAA placed its initial complaint in the court docket to put what it calls Range's 'business model' of 'pursuit of unlawful profit through deception' under the legal and ethical microscope. What was allegedly stolen from CAA, according to CAA, was a lot. In a footnote in today's filing, there is a list: The trade secrets implicated here, at minimum, include the following materials: the confidential client and revenue lists that Whigham sent to his personal email address in March and June 2020; the hundreds of pages of confidential meeting notes that Sullivan sent to his personal email on his way out the door at CAA; the Open Directing Assignment and Open Casting Assignment 'grids' that Employee-1 obtained from CAA in August 2020; the client 'rundowns' that Sullivan sent to himself in August 2020; the highly confidential watermarked meeting information that Cooper's assistant emailed to her personal email account and then to her Range account and/or uploaded to Dropbox; certain confidential or watermarked scripts, and the highly confidential information [Bugliari's assistant] Wandling received from Employee-1 via Telegram and email. A preliminary list of these trade secret materials is attached as Appendix A. All of these documents contain nonpublic confidential information, gathered at significant expense from countless agents, executives, and employees in various roles at CAA. These materials, often watermarked because of their sensitivity, are not distributed to those outside the company and CAA takes additional measures to keep that information within CAA for the benefit of CAA. Frustratingly, the last line of this juicy footnote is redacted. Monday's filing adds two new claims, with a Violation of California Uniform Trade Secrets Act and Violations of California Penal Code Section 502(c) now in the mix for the various unspecified damages over $25,000 that CAA is seeking along with injunctive relief that essentially is intended to bring death by defenestration to the currently expanding Range. Like when CAA's suit was first filed last year, representatives from Range did not respond to Deadline's request for comment on the latest filing. This legal action is separate from the closed-door arbitration over equity going on simultaneously between the players here. CAA's main outside attorney had even more to say than what was in its filing Monday. 'As CAA's new complaint details: for months when they knew they were leaving CAA, multiple Range founders stole valuable information from CAA,' Bo Pearl told Deadline today. 'They took the hard work of CAA colleagues to accelerate Range and lure clients, all while being paid by CAA,' the Paul Hastings partner added. 'Despite Range's many attempts to rewrite history and the hubris to believe that laws don't apply to it, the evidence of Range's wrongdoing is crystal clear. Recently recovered emails, messages, photos, and videos reveal the depths of the deception. The Range founders' public pronouncements of righteousness and innocence are undercut by their every action, which will be laid bare in court.' That sounds like some serious smokin' in the boys room. 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Reuters
a day ago
- Politics
- Reuters
US Attorney General Bondi's brother loses election to lead Washington DC bar
June 9 (Reuters) - Brad Bondi, the brother of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, has lost his bid to lead Washington's attorney bar association after an unusually closely-watched election that drew record turnout from the U.S. capital's 120,000 lawyers. Bondi, a partner and co-chair of the investigations and white-collar defense practice at law firm Paul Hastings, lost the race to serve as bar president to Diane Seltzer, an employment law attorney at The Seltzer Law Firm. D.C. Bar CEO Robert Spagnoletti announced the results on Monday after a race that the group said drew a record 38,600 ballots, up from 7,500 in the last election. Seltzer secured more than 90 percent of the vote, Spagnoletti said. Bondi in a statement said "although I did not prevail, I stand with a heart full of gratitude and a mind heavy with concern for the future of the D.C. Bar." He said he was "disgusted by how rabid partisans lurched this election into the political gutter, turning a professional campaign into baseless attacks, identity politics, and partisan recrimination." Seltzer in a statement said the result showed that Washington's lawyers care about "maintaining the rule of law, being able to practice law without fear of retaliation, and having a leader who is experienced and has the qualifications to be in that position.' Some lawyers in Washington had issued warnings on social media that a Bondi victory could imperil the bar's independence, urging members to vote for Seltzer. Bondi said before the results were announced that he had run a non-partisan campaign for an apolitical post. Membership in the association is mandatory for D.C. lawyers. The group's 23-person board, of which the president is a member, plays a limited role in enforcing ethics rules for attorneys by recommending members to sit on a separate panel that oversees the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Bondi's candidacy rattled some lawyers due to his ties to the Trump administration. His sister, the attorney general, is a loyalist to President Donald Trump and has echoed some of Trump's false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Trump in March directed Pam Bondi to refer lawyers and law firms for disciplinary action if they appeared to violate professional conduct rules. That directive was part of an executive order that accused immigration lawyers of coaching their clients to lie. The Office of Disciplinary Counsel, created by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, has authority to investigate attorney misconduct and to recommend suspending or disbarring lawyers. It pursued several cases against attorneys involved in efforts to overturn Trump's defeat to Democrat Joe Biden during the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The appeals court can reject recommendations from the bar association's board, and the bar's president cannot sway investigatory decisions, according to Spagnoletti. Voting in the D.C. Bar election began on April 15, after Trump launched a pressure campaign on the U.S. legal industry through executive orders against law firms with ties to his legal or political adversaries.
Washington Post
a day ago
- Business
- Washington Post
Bradley Bondi, brother of attorney general, loses bid to lead D.C. Bar
Members of the D.C. Bar have elected an employment attorney as the association's new president, overwhelmingly rejecting the candidacy of lawyer Bradley J. Bondi, brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi. With nearly 38,000 ballots cast, Bar officials announced Monday that Diane Seltzer garnered more than 90 percent of the vote. Bradley Bondi, a partner in the criminal defense firm Paul Hastings, received about 9 percent.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Burgess Hodgson secures investment from Abry Partners
UK accountancy and advisory company Burgess Hodgson has secured an undisclosed investment from US private equity group Abry Partners. The Kent-based firm caters to fast-growing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and individual customers across the UK. Established in 1938, Burgess Hodgson, with headquarters in Canterbury, offers accounting and advisory services to more than 5,000 SME clients. The firm's team of more than 200 professionals delivers a broad range of services, including audit, tax, accounts advisory, outsourced finance, payroll, and corporate advisory solutions. Abry said the investment represents a key step in the professional services provider's expansion plans, offering both strategic guidance and financial backing to scale the business. The partnership aims to extend the firm's geographic reach, strengthen its digital infrastructure, and support selective acquisitions as it evolves into a larger, multi-regional advisory platform. Burgess Hodgson's leadership and partners will maintain significant equity ownership and will continue to guide the firm's strategic direction. As part of the investment, Mark Pacitti, former global leader of Deloitte's Corporate Finance Advisory practice and past chairman of the ICAEW Corporate Finance Faculty, will join the board of Burgess Hodgson as non-executive chairman. The transaction's completion is contingent upon customary regulatory approvals. Continuum Advisory Partners is acting as the exclusive financial advisor to Burgess Hodgson, while Hines Associates and Paul Hastings (Europe) are advising and providing legal counsel to Abry Partners. "Burgess Hodgson secures investment from Abry Partners" was originally created and published by International Accounting Bulletin, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Spearmint Energy secures $250m for two battery storage projects in Texas
Spearmint Energy has successfully closed financing of more than $250m for two battery energy storage systems in the US state of Texas. The projects, Tierra Seca and Seven Flags, each have a capacity of 100MW/200 megawatt hours (MWh) and are currently under construction in Del Rio and Laredo respectively. The package includes $59m in construction-to-term loan facilities from Manulife, $95m in tax equity bridge loan (TEBL) facilities from East West Bank and Investec, and $98m in tax equity commitments from Sugar Creek Capital. East West Bank and Investec coordinated the TEBL facilities, with Investec as the administrative agent and East West Bank as the collateral agent and depository bank. Spearmint founder, president and CEO Andrew Waranch stated: 'We are thrilled to secure this financing for Tierra Seca and Seven Flags, which demonstrates the confidence world-class investors have in Spearmint's ability to develop and efficiently operate grid-scale energy storage infrastructure. 'As rapidly increasing power demand continues to put pressure on grid stability, we are pleased to accelerate the development of these two projects to facilitate increased energy availability in ERCOT.' The MA Mortenson Company is handling the construction of both projects. The projects will use the PowerTitan 2.0 energy storage platform from Sungrow Power Supply. Tierra Seca and Seven Flags will contribute more than 200MW/400MWh of storage capacity to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid, aiming to provide reliable and affordable power across the state. Both projects will commence operations towards the end of 2025. Legal representation for the financing was provided by Paul Hastings for Spearmint, Day Pitney for Manulife, Milbank for East West Bank and Investec, and Leverage Law Group for Sugar Creek. Spearmint chief financial officer Cory Magnuson stated: 'Manulife, East West Bank, Investec and Sugar Creek Capital are globally recognised investors with strong expertise in energy and infrastructure. We are proud that they have elected to partner with Spearmint in our mission of providing safe, stable and affordable power to the grid.' "Spearmint Energy secures $250m for two battery storage projects in Texas" was originally created and published by Power Technology, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Sign in to access your portfolio
