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Trump Sues Univision For $500M In Miss USA Contract Row – Law360
Category: Press | Thursday, July 2nd, 2015 | Comments Off on Trump Sues Univision For $500M In Miss USA Contract Row – Law360
Bryan Sullivan was quoted in Kurt Orzeck’s Law360 piece “Trump Sues Univision For $500M In Miss USA Contract Row,” which can be found below.
Trump Sues Univision For $500M In Miss USA Contract Row
By Kurt Orzeck
Law360, Los Angeles (June 30, 2015, 9:14 PM ET) — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday sued Univision Networks & Studios Inc. for $500 million in New York state court for dropping coverage of the Miss USA Pageant, which Trump partly owns, over incendiary remarks he made about Mexican immigrants.
The breach-of-contract suit — also filed by Miss Universe LP LLLP, which runs the pageant — claims the Spanish-language television network actually made its decision because Univision is principally owned by Haim Saban, a fundraiser for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Saban is trying to suppress Trump’s First Amendment rights, the complaint alleges.
Univision canceled its five-year, $13.5 million contract with Trump over comments he made when he announced his latest presidential bid on June 16, referring to the United States as a “dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.” Trump claimed on Tuesday that the network is contractually obligated to broadcast the pageant live on TV in Spanish on July 12.
The Trump Organization announced the planned lawsuit on Thursday, the same day that Univision said it was ending its business relationship with Miss Universe LP.
Tuesday’s suit said Trump has “dramatically risen in the polls while expressing critical views of Mrs. Clinton. Little else can explain Univision’s decision to not only abandon its contractual relationship with MUO, but also … pressure [NBCUniversal Inc.] to follow suit and cut longstanding ties with plaintiffs nearly two weeks after the statements were made.”
Trump, who’s become known for incendiary remarks on the campaign trail in this and past presidential bids — including insinuating during the 2012 cycle that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States — went on to say in his latest campaign announcement that Mexican immigrants to the United States are not the best the southern neighbor has to offer.
“They’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume are good people. But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting,” Trump said at the time. “They’re sending us not the right people. It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America and it’s coming, probably, probably from the Middle East.”
Univision said that those remarks were unacceptable. Its entertainment division ended its business relationship with the Miss Universe Organization “based on [Trump’s] recent, insulting remarks about Mexican immigrants,” the company said in a statement. “We will not be airing the Miss USA pageant on July 12 or working on any other projects tied to The Trump Organization.”
Although it won’t be airing anything connected with the Trump projects, Univision did say that its news service will continue covering Trump and all other candidates on the campaign trail.
Univision announced in January that it would air the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants under a long-term partnership with Trump and pageant partner NBC.
The Trump Organization said in a Tuesday statement that a high-ranking Univision executive called him earlier this month to apologize and say that the company felt ashamed of its plans to not broadcast the pageant.
“Nothing that I stated was different from what I have been saying for many years,” Trump said in the Tuesday statement. “I want strong borders and I do not support or condone illegal immigration. I have great respect for Mexico and love for the Mexican people and their tremendous spirit!”
The Tuesday suit also alleges defamation and intentional interference with their contractual relationship. It seeks attorneys’ fees, punitive damages and additional relief.
Bryan Sullivan of Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae LLP, who specializes in business matters, told Law360 on Tuesday that “The entire case will turn on what the contract says and, more specifically, whether it has a morals clause that is broad enough to justify its termination due to the offensive comments Donald Trump made about Mexican immigrants.”
Representatives for Univision and Saban didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment late Tuesday.
Plaintiffs are represented by Jeffrey L. Goldman of Belkin Burden Wenig & Goldman LLP. Counsel information for the defendants wasn’t immediately available.
The case is Miss Universe LP LLLP et al. v. Univision Networks & Studios Inc. et al., index number not yet assigned, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York.
–Additional reporting by Bryan Koenig. Editing by Kelly Duncan.
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Viacom Institutes Clean Box Policy – USA Today
Category: Press | Friday, June 5th, 2015 | Comments Off on Viacom Institutes Clean Box Policy – USA Today
Devin McRae was quoted in Elizabeth Weise’s USA Today article “Viacom Institutes Clean Box Policy,” which details Viacom’s new policy to automatically delete employee emails from its electronic mail system after 30 days.
The full article can be found here.
Orly Ravid an “Expert” at LAGFF 3rd International Project Discovery Forum and a Panelist at The Edinburgh Pitch
Category: Events | Thursday, June 4th, 2015 | Comments Off on Orly Ravid an “Expert” at LAGFF 3rd International Project Discovery Forum and a Panelist at The Edinburgh Pitch
Orly Ravid will be an “Expert” at The International Project Discovery Forum, the industry program of the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival, and a panelist at The Edinburgh Pitch. As an International Project Discovery Forum “Expert,” she will speak on the International Distribution Panel and help the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival identify films that have an original approach, made by independent producers and filmmakers that have a unique voice.
As a panelist at The Edinburgh Pitch, Orly will be judging pitches by independent filmmakers and companies that are developing and attracting financing for creative feature documentaries. 12 international filmmakers/producers with feature documentary projects are invited to pitch in front of a carefully selected panel consisting of commissioning editors, funding bodies, sales agents, distributors, festival programmers and producers. ARTE, BBC Storyville, POV, Tribeca, Women Make Movies, Autlook Filmsales and Dogwoof are among regular guests, and projects like ‘Waiting for August’, ‘Chuck Norris vs Communism’, ‘The Trial’ and ‘The Punk Syndrome’ were pitched in Edinburgh the past few years.
More information on The Edinburgh Pitch can be found here.”
Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae LLP Named “Business Litigation Law Firm of the Year – California” by Corporate LiveWire
Category: Awards, Press, Publications | Wednesday, May 27th, 2015 | Comments Off on Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae LLP Named “Business Litigation Law Firm of the Year – California” by Corporate LiveWire
Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae LLP (“Early Sullivan”) is proud to announce that it has been named “Business Litigation Law Firm of the Year – California” by Corporate LiveWire, which honors law firms demonstrating excellence in the corporate finance world and those that have consistently shown best practices and innovation in their work. Nominated by the world’s leading business professionals and corporate finance experts, the Corporate LiveWire awards evaluate a law firm’s performance when deciding the winners of its “Best Law Firm” awards. Candidates are selected by Corporate LiveWire by taking several factors into consideration, including recent significant deals and cases along with firm-produced content demonstrating thought leadership in a particular area of the law.
The Corporate LiveWire Awards represent the pinnacle of business achievement, championing the best in their respective fields. The awards cover the most important sectors of business, from finance to funding to law. The culmination of the awards is the Global Award guide, covering businesses of every type that have proven their excellence throughout the year and years past. The resource offers regular, up-to-date content on various subject areas including business litigation, legislative changes, corporate transactions, international markets and business trends. Early Sullivan’s honor can be seen in the Global Award guide here.
Early Sullivan is a premiere boutique law firm based in Los Angeles, California which handles high stakes business litigation and trials throughout the United States.
Nonaccredited Investments in Crowdfunding Startups – Los Angeles Business Journal
Category: Press | Wednesday, April 22nd, 2015 | Comments Off on Nonaccredited Investments in Crowdfunding Startups – Los Angeles Business Journal
Bryan Sullivan was quoted in the Los Angeles Business Journal regarding “Nonaccredited Investments in Crowdfunding Startups.” Here is Bryan’s quote, which can also be found by clicking on “Download PDF.”
“It is very dangerous to allow non accredited investors to invest in companies via crowdfunding. The principal purpose of the accredited investor concept is to ensure that the only people investing in such companies are people who have demonstrated sufficient financial sophistication to understand the risks associated with the investment and who can bear the economic risk of investing in these types of high-risk investments.”
Bryan Sullivan and Steve Ma To Address “Crowdfunding” at Digital Hollywood Spring
Category: Events | Saturday, April 18th, 2015 | Comments Off on Bryan Sullivan and Steve Ma To Address “Crowdfunding” at Digital Hollywood Spring
Bryan Sullivan and Steve Ma will be panelists on “CrowdFunding Update: Exploring Innovation in the Crowdfunding Film-TV-Start-up Process” at Digital Hollywood Spring on April 27, 2015. Details can be found here or by clicking on “Download PDF” to see the full Digital Hollywood 2015 Agenda.
Bryan Sullivan Named “Top 20 Under 40” by Los Angeles Daily Journal
Category: Awards, News, Press | Tuesday, February 3rd, 2015 | Comments Off on Bryan Sullivan Named “Top 20 Under 40” by Los Angeles Daily Journal
Early Sullivan Partner Bryan Sullivan was named to the Los Angeles Daily Journal’s “Top 20 Under 40” list. Bryan’s profile can be found below:
Bryan M. Sullivan
Practice type: litigation, corporate
Specialties: entertainment, real estate
Trying to fit the work Sullivan does into a tidy box is nearly impossible.
On one end of the spectrum he represents Hollywood luminaries like Miley Cyrus, Kathy Griffin and Whoopi Goldberg in a variety of legal scenarios. On the other, he’s a board member of the tenants’ rights organization Basta and sits on Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s affordable housing committee.
Sullivan said that while he is constantly stimulated by all the legal work he does it’s the latter that really appeals to him.
“Basta is probably what I am most passionate about because this is what most people claim to have gone to law school to do – help those less fortunate,” he said, noting his work on the mayor’s commission. “My personal goal is to find ways to protect the existing stock of affordable housing in L.A., which involves strengthening certain provisions of the Rent Stabilization Ordinance.”
Sullivan is passionate about pro bono but he’s also a fierce advocate and valued advisor for his stable of paying clients. Not content to do reactive legal work, Sullivan characterizes himself as a “legal advisor” someone more likely to figure out a way to avoid prolonged litigation than to blindly throw himself into the fray.
That comprehensive legal guidance is what he does for a lot of clients he has in the start-up space. He represents the founder and majority stakeholder of a digital advertising start-up Streamroll, Kenneth Brook, who is attempting to wind down the company to focus on a new venture. There’s a litany of issues involved, from dealing with minority shareholders to making sure fiduciary duties are met, and Sullivan has his hands in everything.
“In these types of situations, I am dealing with brilliant individuals with extraordinarily creative minds but who have no understanding of the legal issues in forming a company, protecting intellectual property and trade secrets, or fiduciary duties,” he said. “I try to help them with that so they can focus on developing and growing their business.”
There are more traditional successes, such as his win at the Court of Appeal in a case involving a dispute between a contractor and construction lender that set new precedent about how subordination agreements are enforceable as a matter of law. Sullivan said the case, Moorefield Construction, Inc. v. Intervest Mortgage Investment Co., et al, D065464 (Cal. 4th App. Dist., filed Sept. 12, 2014), was a huge win, not only for his client but for construction in California generally.
– Henry Meier
Sony Hack: How the Studio Will (Likely) Handle All Those Lawsuits – The Hollywood Reporter
Category: Press | Sunday, January 25th, 2015 | Comments Off on Sony Hack: How the Studio Will (Likely) Handle All Those Lawsuits – The Hollywood Reporter
Bryan Sullivan was quoted in Austin Siegemund-Broka’s article “Sony Hack: How the Studio Will (Likely) Handle All Those Lawsuits,” which appeared in the January 23, 2015 print edition of The Hollywood Reporter, and can also be found here. The article discusses Sony’s legal strategies in the wake of its massive security breach.
Civil suit against private defense firm could gain class cert – Los Angeles Daily Journal
Category: News, Press | Wednesday, January 21st, 2015 | Comments Off on Civil suit against private defense firm could gain class cert – Los Angeles Daily Journal
Civil suit against private defense firm could gain class cert
By Henry Meier
War zone government contracts are some of the most competitive – and lucrative – opportunities for companies in the private security and defense contractor sector. But a pending federal class action shines a harsh light on the working conditions for the mostly ex- military personnel who signed on by the tens of thousands to join defense contractors engaged in counterterrorism operations overseas.
Plaintiff Karl Risinger and others say their former employer, Nevada-based private security firm SOC LLC – which operates mostly in Iraq – told recruits that for $65,000 a year they would work six 12-hour days a week while on duty in Iraq between 2006 and 2012. That turned out to be a gross underestimate as security team members routinely working grueling hours with no time off for months at a time, according to Risinger’s complaint. Risinger v. SOC LLC et al., CV12-63 (Nev. Dist. Ct., filed Jan. 13, 2012).
“Defendants had deliberately understaffed and underbid the job to such a degree that a readily ascertainable class of thousands of armed guards were forced to work months at a time without a day off, for in excess of 14 hours per day, and in extremely hazardous conditions, without any additional pay (indeed, not even the pay promised),” the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification reads. “And this reality was not revealed to the potential class members until after they had agreed to overseas employment and until after they had been physically transported to the war zone in Iraq.”
Few employment suits like these have been brought successfully, but Risinger’s lawyers at Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae LLP say they are optimistic that the class could be certified, and trigger a Domino effect for the industry.
“If we prevail on our motion to certify a class and get farther along in these case, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more suits,” said Scott E. Gizer, a partner at Early Sullivan.
SOC’s attorneys at Littler Mendelson PC did not immediately respond to request for comment.
With hundreds of billions of dollars doled out to defense contractor firms since the start of military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, federal prosecutors have aggressively policed malfeasance, landing large settlements for the U.S. government. But the prosecutors have primarily focused on fraud perpetrated against the government, rather than labor violations.
Often, bad conduct is tackled in qui tam or whistleblower lawsuits that seek to enjoin an action to the hammer of criminal charges by giving the government the opportunity to insert themselves into a case, according to white collar practitioners who do military contractor defense work. Just in the last month, the Department of Justice announced two significant settlements with defense contractors. Just last week, federal prosecutors from the Southern District said they’d reached an agreement with Glenn Defense Marine Asia, a contractor providing services to the U.S. Navy, that has the company forfeiting some $35 million dollars plus restitution to be determined at the sentencing of its CEO Leonard Glenn Francis, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy, briery and fraud charges.
These cases have cumulatively netted hundreds of millions – likely billions – of dollars in recouped money for the federal government that was gained through allegedly fraudulent means.
“It’s not a fact that there’s an uptick in defense contractor prosecutions, but there’s certainly aggressive investigations into the behavior of government contractors,” said Seth A. Rosenthal, a Venable LLP partner in Washington D.C. “The contracting community is definitely on notice about it.”
But while government prosecution of contractor wrongdoing has a strong track record of success, private, civil suits against these companies are less tested. Only last year a labor case involving Raytheon Co. was thrown out of court by a federal judge who said the plaintiffs did not have grounds to bring the suit.
That case, Robinson v. Raytheon Technical Services Co. LLC et al., CV13-12705 (Mass. Dist. Ct., filed Oct. 24, 2013), in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts is different than the SOC case, however, because it dealt strictly with overtime claims. The suit against SOC also includes multiple allegations of breach of contract, which is what has the case on the verge of class certification.
Gizer said the evidence his firm has seen in discovery shows SOC could not have been unaware of the environment and work schedule they were putting plaintiffs in because it was essentially contained in their bid proposal to the government.
“These guys represented to our clients that their position would be six days a week and 12 hours a day and from what we’ve seen SOC knew that not to be the case,” Gizer said. “The bid contracts they submitted show they could not have believed that.”
LACBA Real Property Section – From Moskopoulos to RNT Holdings – The Insurer’s Duty to Defend in Light of the Insured’s Knowledge/Conduct
Category: Events | Wednesday, January 7th, 2015 | Comments Off on LACBA Real Property Section – From Moskopoulos to RNT Holdings – The Insurer’s Duty to Defend in Light of the Insured’s Knowledge/Conduct
Eric Early and William Wright will present “From Moskopoulos to RNT Holdings – The Insurer’s Duty to Defend in Light of the Insured’s Knowledge/Conduct” to the Los Angeles County Bar Association Real Property section on January 13, 2015. Topics will include conduct and knowledge affecting coverage under a title insurance policy following the firm’s recent appellate victory in the RNT Holdings case.