United Expertise Company has amended its lawsuit in opposition to former MediaLink chief Michael Kassan — placing its preliminary claims in opposition to its former accomplice to maneuver these grievances to arbitration. The amended grievance gives new particulars of allegations of economic mismanagement in opposition to the promoting business’s well-known matchmaker and fixer, who blasts the litigation in an announcement to Selection as a “smear” effort.

UTA maintains that Kassan “erased any line between his private and enterprise bills” throughout his two plus years with the corporate following UTA’s acquisition of MediaLink for $125 million in December 2021. UTA’s amended grievance drops a number of claims in opposition to him however accuses Kassan of threatening to breach the noncompete clause in his contract. The grievance asserts that Kassan’s “silly boasts” to media retailers that he deliberate to launch new enterprise ventures amounted to threats to violate his settlement. Information of the explosive cut up between Kassan and UTA erupted on March 12 with Selection’s unique report.

Kassan, in the meantime, cited UTA’s “damaged guarantees” throughout his tenure and energy to trash his status by way of the litigation providing element on his famously lavish spending habits.

“Resigning from MediaLink was one of many hardest selections I’ve ever needed to make,” Kassan stated. “However, after two years of navigating Jeremy Zimmer’s damaged guarantees, his insistence on growing pricing on purchasers, and his makes an attempt to chop worker compensation, I felt it was the proper factor to do. I’m happy UTA has now dismissed each declare in opposition to me as their frivolous lawsuit was nothing greater than an try to smear me over the explanations I resigned.”

UTA legal professional Bryan Freedman stated the choice to drop lawsuit claims — for constructive fraud, breach of fiduciary obligation and breach of obligation of loyalty — had been merely procedural and that he’s shifting to non-public arbitration whereas pursuing injunctive reduction and damages in state court docket.

“The court docket motion has been amended to convey injunctive reduction claims primarily based on Kassan’s admission that he intends to violate the settlement and have interaction in aggressive exercise,” Freedman stated. “Extra claims for financial reduction have been introduced in arbitration as we proceed to find extra theft and different monetary misconduct. Not a day goes by that we don’t study extra about Kassan’s true nature. We’ll proceed to amend the pleadings to mirror the reality. We’re not dropping claims we’re including to them and placing all of the financial claims right into a separate arbitration.”

Nonetheless, the amended grievance additionally got here two days after Kassan’s legal professional’s threatened to hunt sanctions in opposition to UTA for submitting a frivolous lawsuit.

“UTA frivolously filed a lawsuit and after receiving a letter setting forth a foundation for sanctions. UTA then dropped each single declare in opposition to Mr. Kassan. UTA then amended their grievance, searching for a restraining order to not compete, which may even be dismissed shortly as a result of Mr. Kassan has the proper to compete. Actually, he paid $10,000,000 so as to take action,” stated Kassan legal professional Sanford Michelman.

The lawyer refers to a severance package deal with noncompete clauses price $10 million, which UTA supplied Kassan earlier than asserting that he was fired for mismanagement of firm funds. UTA disputes this provide.

Within the grievance first filed March 12 in Los Angeles Superior Court docket, UTA accused Kassan of utilizing firm funds for “clearly improper private bills” and for spending “a small fortune on luxurious journey.” The amended grievance provides element to earlier allegations that Kassan used UTA funds to pay for an residence for his driver, a bank card for his spouse and different private bills.

“In 2022, Kassan engineered a scheme to divert MediaLink funds to his private company. Particularly, Kassan abused his place as MediaLink CEO by ordering MediaLink’s most senior finance government to pay what Kassan described as “bi-monthly installments” of the $950,000 “Particular Bills” price range to MKI, his S-Company,” the grievance states.

The dissolution of the enterprise relationship got here all the way down to a battle over spending, particularly on luxurious journey, presents and perks. Kassan additionally claims he was shortly “siloed” within the UTA acquisition and given not one of the energy in his promised scope as a frontrunner. Kassan strongly maintains that he had a contractual discretionary fund inbuilt to the MediaLink price range for such spending. Kassan’s crew additionally asserts that UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer was a passenger on a few of these non-public jet rides.

(Pictured: Michael Kassan, Jeremy Zimmer)