After the Creative Artists Agency accused Range Media Partners of operating as an “unlicensed talent agency built on deceit” last year, a California judge has issued a mixed ruling between the agents and the managers.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark A. Young dismissed CAA’s claims of tortious interference, stealing trade secrets and illegally accessing confidential information on Thursday, but acknowledged that Range may indeed be violating the Talent Agencies Act.
Per the demurrer, CAA will be allowed to refile their Trade Secrets Act claims if they wish to prove that their former employees who helped found Range in 2020 really did spy on confidential meetings in order to steal industry secrets. This is because the judge did not necessarily find issue with the merit of the allegations, but rather the timeline (TSA violations have a three-year statute of limitations, while the alleged thievery took place between January and October 2020).
Essentially, RMP co-founder Peter Micelli and his “accomplices” Jack Whigham, David Bugliari, Michael Cooper and Mick Sullivan have been accused of using a legal loophole to effectively work as agents despite being managers. While Range attempted to argue that a labor commissioner should be the one determining that outcome since it deals with the TAA, Judge Young noted that would only apply to controversies “between Artists and Agents, not Agents versus other Agents.”
“While the TAA mandates that the Commissioner determine jurisdiction over issues colorably arising from the TAA, those disputes must be between and Agent and an Artist, which is not the case here,” the judge issued. “The TAA does not purport to regulate the relationship between Agents and other businesses (i.e., non-parties) and there is no case law supporting such a broad reading of the TAA.”
“The ruling confirms what this case is really about: CAA’s attempt to block competition and control the choices of talent,” Range lawyers Orin Snyder and Ilissa Samplin said in a Thursday statement. “CAA’s remaining claim under the Talent Agencies Act exposes CAA’s true goal: forcing artists into a system CAA controls … CAA wants to dictate who talent can work with, even if it means attacking managers, advisors and those who support talent outside their agency.”
TheWrap has reached out to CAA for further comment.
