Lawyers for United Talent Agency and Michael Kassan, the founder and former CEO of UTA’s MediaLink unit, continued to trade charges on Monday.
Kassan’s lawyer, Sanford Michelman, said many of UTA’s charges against Kassan were easily explained and were part of a campaign to prevent Kassan from setting up a competitor to MediaLink, either through contractual ties or with a campaign designed to damage Kassan’s reputation.
By forgoing a $10 million payment, Kassan and his team say he is free according to his contract to compete with MediaLink and UTA.
In legal papers, UTA continued to allege that Kassan engaged in a series of financial transactions that put the agency’s money in Kassan’s personal bank account.
"Every day, more fraud about Kassan is uncovered and we’re going to fight him in every forum possible,” said Bryan Freedman, counsel for UTA. “We’ve launched an arbitration action in order to consolidate the growing financial claims stemming from his thefts, and are also taking steps with the court to stop him from further violating his agreements with UTA.”
Among the new allegations that surfaced were a $3 million tax lien. Some of Kassan’s past legal issues were also dredged up as part of the dispute.
Michelman, Kassan’s attorney, said that when UTA realized that Kassan was going to start a new company to compete with MediaLink, “UTA freaked out and went into battle mode.”
After Kassan resigned from MediaLink, UTA attempted to patch things up.
“The person they now allege was a bad businessman and stealing money, that they would never want around the company that they bought, they offered for him to stay on until the end of his contract term,” Michelman said. The deal even called for Kassan to get $3 million when his contract expired so he could help with the transition to a new CEO.
Kassan offered to buy MediaLink back from UTA, but a deal couldn’t be worked out Michelman said in an on-the-record call with reporters.
Since then, UTA has been spreading “misinformation” to “deflect from the the fact that Michael Kassan has a contractual right to leave and compete, and that’s what he's doing,” Michelman said.
