International Courant
United Expertise Company has amended its lawsuit towards former MediaLink chief Michael Kassan — placing its preliminary claims towards its former accomplice to maneuver these grievances to arbitration. The amended criticism gives new particulars of allegations of monetary mismanagement towards the promoting trade’s well-known matchmaker and fixer, who blasts the litigation in an announcement to Selection as a “smear” effort.
UTA maintains that Kassan “erased any line between his private and enterprise bills” throughout his two plus years with the corporate following UTA’s acquisition of MediaLink for $125 million in December 2021. UTA’s amended criticism drops a number of claims towards him however accuses Kassan of threatening to breach the non-compete clause in his contract. The criticism asserts that Kassan’s “silly boasts” to media retailers that he deliberate to launch new enterprise ventures amounted to threats to violate his settlement. Information of the explosive break up between Kassan and UTA erupted on March 12 with Selection’s unique report.
Kassan, in the meantime, cited UTA’s “damaged guarantees” throughout his tenure and energy to tarnish his fame via the litigation providing particulars on his famously lavish spending habits.
“Resigning from MediaLink was one of many hardest selections I’ve ever needed to make,” Kassan mentioned. “However, after two years of navigating Jeremy Zimmer’s damaged guarantees, his insistence on growing pricing on purchasers, and his makes an attempt to chop worker compensation, I felt it was the suitable factor to do. I’m happy UTA has now dismissed each declare towards me as their frivolous lawsuit was nothing greater than an try and smear me over the explanations I resigned.”
UTA legal professional Bryan Freedman mentioned the choice to drop lawsuit claims — for constructive fraud, breach of fiduciary responsibility and breach of responsibility of loyalty — have been merely procedural and that he’s shifting to personal arbitration whereas pursuing injunctive aid and damages in state court docket.
“The court docket motion has been amended to convey injunctive aid claims based mostly on Kassan’s admission that he intends to violate the settlement and interact in aggressive exercise,” Freedman mentioned. “Extra claims for financial aid have been introduced in arbitration as we proceed to find extra theft and different monetary misconduct. Not a day goes by that we do not study extra about Kassan’s true nature. We’ll proceed to amend the pleadings to replicate the reality. We aren’t dropping claims, we’re including to them and placing all of the financial claims right into a separate arbitration.”
Nevertheless, the amended criticism additionally got here two days after Kassan’s legal professional threatened to hunt sanctions towards UTA for submitting a frivolous lawsuit.
“UTA frivolously filed a lawsuit and after receiving a letter setting forth a foundation for sanctions. UTA then dropped each single declare towards Mr. Cassan. UTA then amended their criticism, in search of a restraining order to not compete, which may also be dismissed shortly as a result of Mr. Kassan has the suitable to compete. In reality, he paid $10,000,000 so as to take action,” mentioned Kassan legal professional Sanford Michelman.
The lawyer refers to a severance package deal with non-compete clauses value $10 million, which UTA supplied Kassan earlier than asserting that he was fired for mismanagement of firm funds. UTA disputes this supply.
Within the criticism first filed March 12 in Los Angeles Superior Court docket, UTA accused Kassan of utilizing firm funds for “clearly improper private bills” and for spending “a small fortune on luxurious journey.” The amended criticism provides element to earlier allegations that Kassan used UTA funds to pay for an residence for his driver, a bank card for his spouse and different private bills.
“In 2022, Kassan engineered a scheme to divert MediaLink funds to his private company. Particularly, Kassan abused his place as MediaLink CEO by ordering MediaLink’s most senior finance government to pay what Kassan described as “bi-monthly installments” of the $950,000 “Particular Bills” price range to MKI, his S-Company,” the criticism states.
The dissolution of the enterprise relationship got here right down to a battle over spending, particularly on luxurious journey, items and perks. Kassan additionally claims he was shortly “siloed” within the UTA acquisition and given not one of the energy in his promised scope as a pacesetter. Kassan strongly maintains that he had a contractual discretionary fund constructed into the MediaLink price range for such spending. Kassan’s workforce additionally asserts that UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer was a passenger on a few of these personal jet rides.
(Pictured: Michael Kassan, Jeremy Zimmer)
