INTERMEDIATE: The closed-door battle between CAA and Range Media Partners is about a rich deal canceled by the Bryan Lourd-led agency when the quartet of agents who left for other pastures six years ago are about to go public — big time.
And, with no competition in the mix, it will be personal.
Especially since the JAMS arbitrators highlighted in their decision late last year that the CAA “Big Three,” such as former judges Rosalyn Chapman, William Cahill and Luis Cardenas who called Lourd, Kevin Huvane and Richard Lovett, did not know (to put it correctly) what their fiduciary and legal duties are. Obligations extending to the payment of such equity and the role of co-ownership to which the recipients of such equity are entitled.
In fact, in a surprise win for the plaintiffs, JAMS arbitrators asserted that CAA breached its legal and contractual duties to soon-to-be ambassadors Dave Bugliari, Michael Cooper, Mick Sullivan and Jack Whigham in 2020 when the agency canceled their unlicensed and unvested CAA interests. In total, the three former judges put the entire CAA equity program under the microscope, with the tens of millions Lourd, Huvane and Lovett presided over as the de facto executives in question.
CAA has already filed its notice of appeal against the $40 million judgment and the increase from the arbitrators, a move that was expected earlier this year, shortly after the interim arbitration decision was issued. At the same time, CAA and Range continue to duke it out in Los Angeles Superior Court in a lawsuit filed in 2024 by CAA that accuses Range of poaching, misappropriation of trade secrets, and being an “unauthorized talent agency built on deception.”
RELATED: CAA Moved Away by Countersuit in Poaching Dispute
Everything that can be dark in scope compared to the blast radius of the arbitration decision, happens with a new action. Specifically, pronunciation Game of Thronescomes the plural verb.
Led by class action lawyer Bryan Freedman, the massive action (as opposed to a class action that sees each plaintiff represented individually and assessed for individual damages) will include Range founder and former CAA TV executive Peter Micelli, I hear. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, the substance of the mass action will be based on the words of JAMS arbitrators and former judges.
Note, nothing has been filed in court as of today. Again, the CAA’s complaint to confidential arbitration effectively pushes the reset button on that matter for the next 60 days or so.
Nevertheless, we are looking to see who is owed, where the equity is and where it has been going, and the movement to stop the agents from going elsewhere, the effort continues to find as many past and present CAAers as possible to join Bugliari, Cooper, Sullivan and Whigham to open books and accounts for CAA.
This next phase of what has been a fierce battle between former colleagues since the dark days of the Covid pandemic represents an operation in the field of justice.
“Regarding the filing of a mass or class action lawsuit, we are currently in the process of representing former and current CAA agents who were forced to sign illegal non-competes as a condition of their membership in CAA’s equity programs,” Freedman told Deadline today.
“These agents range from thousands to hundreds of past and present shareholders of CAA who have been illegally prevented from competing under the threat of losing their equity,” said Freedman regarding the sanctioning of those rich payments by CAA, as was done to Bugliari, Cooper, Sullivan and Whigham in their exits in 2020.
In addition to that, a number of current and former CAAers told Deadline that they have received smaller portions of their shares in recent years. The situation has become “worse” since CAA was restructured after Artémis led by Francois-Henri Pinault released 7 billion dollars of the organization’s majority in 2023, an existing member of the so-called Death Star said, “We can’t get straight answers, it’s very worrying.”
“The former agents who lost their equity in CAA are entitled to damages for lost money,” added Freedman, sharp-elbowed and media-savvy, to the Century City crowd. “Current CAA agents in charge of equity have the right to maintain their equity and freely join competent agencies and management companies. All of these past and present CAA agents have the right to end their illegal contests and receive their attorney’s fees and costs. In accordance with well-established law, we will continue to ensure that CAA will be held legally accountable for these past employees.”
Unlike Voluble Freedman, the CAA was silent on Thursday when a deadline reached for comment on the mass action. Part of that may be the agency sticking to its own formal appeals process for arbitration and the LASC’s decision on breach of fiduciary duty and interference.
However, while it is common to appeal against a unanimous decision of the respected JAMS arbitrators, the fiduciary aspects of the way the CAA seems to be run may prove more than embarrassing given the decision, which is attached to a public file if you know what I mean?
