failed so far to produce an agreement. The goal was to allow the two agencies to become franchised by the guild and end their long-running legal battle over packaging fees and agency affiliations with corporately related production entities.
Young, in his declaration, said that “Representatives of the Guilds and WME met by videoconference on August 18 and September 1, 2020. I did not attend either meeting, though the WGAW representatives who did participate, including the WGAW president , two of the three negotiating committee chairs , and senior WGAW executives, had full authority to act on behalf of the Guilds.
“Fourth, WME demanded that the UTA/ICM franchise agreement be modified to exempt all of its investors from regulation under the Franchise Agreement, a radical departure from the UTA/ICM franchise agreement—and every other franchise agreement the WGA negotiated to date— which explicitly binds the franchised agencies’ shareholders to the regulations set forth in the franchise agreement.
After the UTA and ICM agreements were signed, Young said that “there was concern on the negotiating committee and among the membership at large that the two remaining agencies would each come to the Guild demanding additional concessions.
On September 10, he said, Courtney Braun, Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Endeavor – a the parent company of WME – sent Young an email stating: “As discussed with Rick [Rosen], below is our proposed language for Section 3.B.1. of the Franchise Agreement . . . .
“In approaching this stage of the negotiations, we believed that it was important to understand the complex corporate structure of each agency and to verify, for example, that none of their private equity shareholders held investments that violated the 20% limitation.
Young said that on September 30, after consulting with the guilds’ mergers and acquisitions counsel, the guilds sent WME and CAA identical requests for information relevant to corporate structure and governance. On October 9, he said, “Braun provided a small amount of information in response to the Guilds’ information request, including a one-page ownership chart and a short description of WME’s governance structure.
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