News  /  February 27, 2015  /  ,

KHIKS wins for Studio Solutions Group on breach of contract

KHIKS partner Jeremiah Reynolds has prevailed in arbitration on behalf of Studio Solutions Group (“SSG”), an international film distributor, on SSG’s claim that film rights licensor IM Global (“IMG”) breached the parties’ agreements on several films by accepting the agreed-upon payments from SSG and then refusing to grant the distribution rights.

IMG’s stated grounds for retaining SSG’s payments without fulfilling its own obligations were that SSG still owed money on other film titles, and thus IMG was re-directing the current funds from SSG towards paying off the alleged delinquencies on the other films.  The arbitrator ruled that (1) IMG had no right to commingle the accounting for the films, (2) each agreement was a standalone contract, and (3) the penalty provision in the agreements is unenforceable.

See the announcement of the decision in The Hollywood Reporter (scroll down to the second bullet point that begins, “An IFTA arbitrator has ordered IM Global . . .”) and the arbitrator’s complete ruling.