Bruce Willis's Yippee Ki-Yay Arbitration Award

Last week, Bruce Willis asked a Superior Court judge to affirm an arbitrator's award and enter it as a formal judgment against Benaroya Pictures in the amount of $5.8 million. An arbitrator found the head of a movie production company thoroughly non-credible after his misrepresentation about a film that died a week into shooting. The award found that the company and its alter ego breached a contract to pay Willis $8 million to star in an action thriller called Wake. Willis was to play a sociopath with a violent history attempting to reconnect with his estranged family at his brother's wake. Reportedly, Willis typically earns $6 million to $8 million to lead a feature film and as much as $3 million for a one or two-day cameo role. The defendant was a producer in more than 20 films, including a 2011 crime thriller called Catch .44 that starred Willis. In the deal for Wake, an escrow agreement was created under which the film company was to place payment in an escrow account before principal photography began. The account holder was to pay Willis a portion of the fee each week over the planned seven-week shooting schedule. The producer failed to find full financing for the $25 million project and managed to put only $3 million into escrow by the time production was abandoned. By that point, Willis already spent two days in front of the camera. Willis took the dispute to arbitration, claiming breach of the escrow agreement. The arbitrator found the producer negligently misrepresented the film was fully funded, but denied remaining tort claims and counterclaims. The producer asked the Superior Court to vacate the award because the arbitrator had gone too far in adding him personally as a defendant, despite being a non-signatory. See more in stories here-- http://bit.ly/2cM7i7y and http://bit.ly/2cInisa and http://bit.ly/2bHVJNW

Cosby Confidentiality

Last summer, The New York Times published an article referring to the full transcript of Bill Cosby's 2005 deposition in Constand v. Cosby. Andrea Constand sued Cosby for sexual assault and agreed to a confidential settlement in 2006. Portions of the deposition transcript were previously released by a U.S. District Judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, when referenced in an unsealed court document. Cosby's lawyers portrayed confidentiality as what induced them to make a settlement with his accuser in the first place. Court records can be sealed if there is good cause, which generally means the harm caused by making information available to the public is greater than its benefit. However, with the strong presumption in favor of public access to court documents, it is incumbent on parties and their attorneys to seek protection before filing confidential information in the court record. The federal judge denied motions from both sides over the release of the transcript from that decade-old deposition in the sexual-assault lawsuit against Cosby. Last week, decisions were issued denying Cosby's motion for leave to take discovery on how the transcript was released, as well as denying a motion for sanctions against Cosby's attorney for trying to take discovery. After the release of the full transcript, it reportedly became clear in court documents that a court reporting service provided the document to the press under the impression that it was a publicly available document. Cosby's lawyers alleged the release breached the confidentiality conditions of the settlement agreement. Interestingly, however, the presiding judge said such limitations were set forth in the settlement agreement, not in a court order and therefore, the court cannot conclude whether the disclosure would constitute a violation of of the parties' confidentiality agreement. See more in full story here-- http://bit.ly/1VNnEMe

Christmas at Tiffany's? Not so much.

Arbitrators recently ordered Tiffany & Co. to pay Swatch Group some $449 million in compensation over a contractual dispute administered by the Netherlands Arbitration Institute. The award also required Tiffany to to pay interest, the Swiss watchmaker’s legal fees of $8.8 million, and two-thirds of the cost of arbitration. The penalty reportedly exceeds Tiffany's annual earnings last year. A three-member Dutch arbitration panel ruled in Swatch's favor with one dissenting opinion. The companies formed an alliance in 2007 to develop and distribute of Tiffany brand watches. Despite a twenty-year agreement under which Swatch would create a new company, Tiffany Watch Co. Ltd., to make and sell watches under the Tiffany brand, things ended badly in 2011. Swatch alleged breach of contract, claiming Tiffany was moving too slowly to launch and promote the products. Tiffany filed a counterclaim, blaming Swatch for not getting watches onto the shelves of other retailers. Tiffany's counterclaim was dismissed. See stories here-- http://on.wsj.com/1bRee8W and http://wapo.st/JHwbjQ