lawsuits

The former Viacom chairman’s lawsuit claims Manuela Herzer and Sydney Holland took advantage of him, leaving him with over $90 million in tax obligations.

A month after Netflix was lambasted in the courts by Fox for allegedly “illegally” poaching two executives still under contract, the streaming service today struck back with a hard-hitting counter-complaint charging “unlawful and anti-competitive business practices” by the other side.

Relativity Media filed suit against Netflix for breach of contract and libel on Tuesday, asserting that the platform used Relativity “to gain standing in Hollywood, and then ruthlessly attempted to dissolve an output deal so lucrative that Relativity became dependent on its guaranteed payments to survive.” The company is claiming in excess of $1.5 billion in damages.

Donald Trump is threatening to sue The New York Times for defamation in response to a Times article published Wednesday night that quoted two women who accused Trump of kissing and groping them without their consent.

After hearing arguments from attorneys, Chancellor Andre Bouchard agreed to put the case on hold until he hears arguments in January on the motion to dismiss and issues his ruling. The shareholder plaintiffs are challenging actions taken by Viacom’s board in renominating Redstone, 93, as a director earlier this year amid concerns about his health and mental capacity, and efforts by Redstone and his daughter Shari to change the company’s bylaws and oust certain directors.

The attorney for former Fox News Channel personality Andrea Tantaros said today the host had turned down a settlement offer in the “seven figures” and would continue to press her case alleging harassment by senior executives at the 21st Century Fox-owned cable-news outlet.

ONZA Partners sued NBCUniversal and Sony Pictures Entertainment, claiming Timeless is an unauthorized version of its show El Ministerio del Tiempo (The Ministry of Time.)

Former WTAE Pittsburgh anchor Wendy Bell’s federal court claim that she wouldn’t have been fired for posting opinions about the background and race of the Wilkinsburg massacre suspects if she were black should be thrown out because it’s speculation, the TV station’s parent company says.

Smart TV manufacturer Vizio is asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that the company violated a federal video privacy law by sharing information about consumers with ad tech companies and data brokers.

21st Century Fox on Friday filed a lawsuit against Netflix Inc., accusing the streaming video giant of illegally hiring two of its executives who were under contract. The suit  alleges that Netflix has run a “brazen campaign to unlawfully target, recruit, and poach valuable Fox executives by illegally inducing them to break their employment contracts with Fox to work at Netflix.”

First Katie Couric was called out for self-admitted editing in an exchange with members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League in the documentary Under The Gun, now she, the film’s director and cable net Epix itself are being sued for over $12 million over the edits.

Univision, which bought Gawker Media last month, believed that it was obligated to delete the posts because it did not assume Gawker’s liabilities, according to a memo.

John Gormally, the former owner of ABC affiliate WGGB Springfield-Holyoke, Mass., got out of the television industry two years ago, is suing Charter Communications for allegedly underpaying him for retransmitting his broadcasts in 2013, according to a legal complaint being heard in U.S. District Court in Springfield.

In the few weeks since Gawker.com was forced to shut down thanks to billionaire Peter Thiel, the same lawyers Thiel funded on behalf of Hulk Hogan and others have taken on two new rich and powerful clients: Melania Trump, the wife of the Republican nominee for president, and Roger Ailes, the disgraced former Fox News chief.

21st Century Fox’s $20 million settlement with former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson has created a publicity nightmare for the cable channel, and it’s also raised questions about whether 21st Century Fox’s shareholders will take legal action against the company’s board of directors because company funds were used to settle sexual harassment claims.

Fox News Channel says its former host Andrea Tantaros “is not a victim of sexual harassment as her lawsuit against the network claims, rather, she is an “opportunist.” FNC is calling for arbitration which it says is in accordance with her employment agreement. The network notes that she is already a party to pending arbitration after having been suspended by Fox, which has accused her of breaching her employment agreement by writing a book without prior authorization by the network.

Brian Stelter combs through Andrea Tantaros’ lawsuit against Fox News, which she said engaged in retaliatory behaviors against her for complaining about her boss Roger Ailes’ behavior with her. A salient element of the suit is the role of Fox’s PR team, whose personnel acted “as natural extensions of [Ailes’] never-ending campaign against opponents, including but not limited to Democratic politicians and liberal media outlets.”

Andrea Tantaros, a former Fox News host, charged in a lawsuit filed Monday that top executives at the network, including the man who replaced Roger Ailes, punished her for complaining about sexual harassment by Ailes. The suit by Tantaros, filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, is the latest round in a contentious volley that began in late winter.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed a $100 million consumer lawsuit against Comcast. The lawsuit accuses the company of “engaging in a pattern of deceptive practices.” It asserts that the company’s own documents reveal a pattern of illegally deceiving its customers to pad its bottom line by tens of millions of dollars. The lawsuit alleges more than 1.8 million individual violations of the Washington Consumer Protection Act.

Over a year after Fox, Empire co-creators Lee Daniels and Danny Strong, series star Terrence Howard, writer Malcolm Spellman and media mogul Rupert Murdoch were sued in a $10 million copyright infringement suit by “self-described ‘gangsta pimp’” Ron Newt, a federal judge has tossed the case out.

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman appears to have won a partial victory in his effort to remain a central player in Sumner Redstone’s media empire.  A Massachusetts judge has decided to take a case by Dauman and Viacom director George Abrams challenging Redstone’s ability to restructure his family trust and the board of his National Amusements, which owns 80% of the votes at Viacom and CBS. But the court did not agree with Dauman’s request to order an immediate examination of the 93-year-old.

Lawyers for besieged Viacom boss Philippe Dauman have begun settlement talks with entrenched foes — Shari Redstone and her 93-year-old founder father, Sumner — to try to end the nonstop litigation over who’s running the company.

Judy Sheindlin may have to be the one facing the judge next year because Wednesday the TV host and CBS were handed a trial date in the lawsuit over the profits from her long running show. With the $47 million dollar annual salary of the former family court judge near the heart of the action by Rebel Entertainment, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge has set Oct. 23, 2017, as the opening of the jury trial.

It’s strike two against Manuela Herzer. A Los Angeles judge on Monday denied a request by Sumner Redstone’s former girlfriend for a new trial that could reinstate her as the ailing mogul’s health-care proxy.

It accuses the cable operator of using its recent merger with Time Warner Cable to force Univision to accept lower rates.

Viacom and its CEO Philippe Dauman asked two courts today to order an immediate exam of controlling shareholder Sumner Redstone to determine whether the 93-year-old is competent to run his media empire. “The necessity of an immediate mental examination cannot be overstated,” Dauman’s lawyers told the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court.

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences filed a lawsuit Wednesday in federal court against Heritage Auctions and the late pop star Whitney Houston’s estate, saying the sale of her Emmy trophy would violate academy rules.

Dish Network has filed a lawsuit against Tribune Broadcasting, accusing the broadcaster of deliberately spreading false statements about the satellite provider in the retrans fight that is now in its second week.

They are still locked in dispute behind closed doors over a retransmission contract, but NBCUniversal and Dish Network have put down their legal swords over the ad-skipping tech the satellite company introduced several years back. This deal joins Fox’s lawsuit-ending agreement in February and the settlement CBS and Dish came to in December 2014.

Sumner Redstone-controlled National Amusements just dropped the big one: It says it has replaced five of Viacom’s directors, including CEO Philippe Dauman. The company has said that it would challenge such a decision at the Chancery Court in Delaware, where Viacom is incorporated.

After having his suit against NBC over loss of NBC affiliation dismissed last month by a federal appeals court judge, WHDH Boston owner Ed Ansin on Wednesday announced: “We filed a notice of appeal with the federal court. We believe the judge got it all wrong, so we are reviewing our options for an appeal.”

Sumner Redstone’s former companion, Manuela Herzer, is renewing her legal effort to have Redstone declared mentally incompetent, comparing the ailing 93-year-old billionaire media mogul to the bumbling “King Lear” in the William Shakespeare tragedy.

The New York company says in the filing that it has as much as $500 million in debt and up to $100 million in assets.