This spring, agent Brooks Sherman filed a lawsuit against The Bent Agency and ceo Jenny Bent, alleging that they have refused to pay him commissions due. Sherman’s suit, filed in New York County on April 20, says that in April 2021 the agency “repudiated the commission obligation and failed to make a required periodic payment.” The suit estimates the potential future commissions at stake are “valued well in excess of $1.5 million over the next decade.” Sherman left the Bent Agency in 2017, but continued to collect commissions on work by authors including Adam Silvera, Becky Albertalli, and Angie Thomas. […]
Legal
Simon & Schuster Wins Libel Case, But Supreme Court Minority Wants to Overturn “Actual Malice” Standard
The Supreme Court let stand a verdict in favor of publisher Simon & Schuster and author Guy Lawson’s Arms and the Dudes: How Three Stoners from Miami Beach Became the Most Unlikely Gunrunners in History (the basis of the movie War Dogs). Albanian Shkelzen Berisha had sued for defamation, but lower courts found he was a public figure with respect to stories about Albanian weapons-trafficking, and did not meet the high bar of showing that the author acted with “actual malice” in any alleged errors. That is the standard set in the significant 1964 Supreme Court decision, New York Times […]
Legal: Former Bonnier Books UK CEO Found In Contempt
Former Bonnier Books UK CEO Richard Johnson, fired in 2018 for what the company called gross misconduct, has now been found in contempt of court after threatening to release secret “evidence” against the company, the Bookseller reports. For months, Johnson failed to respond adequately to a January motion for injunctive relief after he threatened that he had “taped a lot of conversations with senior people in Bonnier over the years and the conduct and those tapes are as clear as anything.” Johnson was ordered to pay Bonnier’s court costs, and additional consequences are still possible. Johnson belatedly submitted a witness […]
Legal: Foundry Dispute Will Linger
Following a conference with Judge Joel M. Cohen earlier this week, the lawsuits between former Foundry partners Peter McGuigan and Yfat Reiss Gendell are scheduled for a lengthy process of litigation. Without ruling yet on any of the preliminary motions, the court set a discovery process that will end in late November, with motions for summary judgment due by January 3, 2022.
Bolton Gets to Keep the Money
Memorialized in a brief filing with the Federal Court of Wednesday, the Biden administration’s Department of Justice dropped the Trump administration’s witch hunt against former National Security Advisor John Bolton. They dismissed the civil lawsuit looking to recover Bolton’s earnings from publishing THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED without formal, written clearance from the government. And according to Bolton’s lawyer, the government also dropped a grand jury investigation over the book’s publication. Previously, US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth had indicated a strong inclination to support the government’s case, though full evidence had not yet been presented. Earlier this year, Lamberth […]
Legal
A lawsuit in the UK has revealed that Neil Blair at The Blair Partnership paid his former employer Christopher Little £10 million as a settlement fee in January 2012. The payment came after Blair set up his own agency in 2011 and took over representation of JK Rowling. The filing also indicates that Blair borrowed the money for the lump sum payment from Rowling. The only previous report of the settlement was a Daily Mail account in February 2012, with a statement from statement from reputation and crisis-management firm Project Associates indicating that Rowling and Little “have reached an amicable agreement […]