Bryan Lourd’s CAA is lobbing serious allegations at its former employees, accusing them of contract breaches, loyalty breaches, and tortious interference by coaxing clients and at-will employees to jump ship.
A talent agency war is treading into explosive territory, with A-list stars possibly caught in the cross-fire. The controversy traces back to 2020, when a cohort of CAA agents, including veterans Peter Micelli, Dave Bugliari, and Jack Whigham, left to establish Range Media Partners with financial backing from hedge fund billionaire and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen. As Matt has chronicled, CAA immediately cut off their vested equity interests in the agency. So the defectors, now managers under the Range banner, tapped litigator Bryan Freedman to reclaim their stake. What hasn’t been reported is the aggressive response from Bryan Lourd’s CAA, which is probing how Range’s constellation of stars, including Bradley Cooper, Anna Kendrick, and Tom Hardy, have secured their recent roles.
In arbitration proceedings, CAA is lobbing serious allegations at its former employees, accusing them of contract breaches, loyalty breaches, and tortious interference by coaxing clients and at-will employees to jump ship. CAA, represented by Paul Hastings, charges that these agents pilfered confidential data and laid the groundwork for their new venture, then under the working banner of “Moxie Media,” while still employed at CAA.
Perhaps more consequently, CAA is framing Range not merely as a management firm but as a rival agency, a critical distinction in California, where agents must be licensed. Range apparently is not. Most amazing for the typically super-secret talent business, to bolster its case, CAA is demanding communications related to the work and fees of Range’s erstwhile clients—including Benicio Del Toro, Casey Affleck, Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender, and Taron Egerton, among others—hoping to uncover more about the support provided to them by Range, and remarkably, how much money was made from those jobs booked. (Notably, CAA continues to represent some of them too, at least ostensibly, including Kendrick and Michael Shannon.) Furthermore, CAA is also seeking other categories of documents, including what was prepared for Cohen before his Point72 Ventures made a splashy investment to bankroll the new firm. (Freedman said he couldn’t comment.)
CAA’s efforts to obtain these documents have met obstacles, so the agency has now taken its fight to Los Angeles Superior Court to enforce arbitration subpoenas. According to court filings I obtained, some Range principals have already faced sanctions and fines for their non-cooperation in discovery, although the arbitrator, Rosalyn Chapman, stopped short of ending the defectors’ equity stake claims as a consequence for not handing over documents.
It’s a rather extraordinary move for a talent agency to demand private information about ex-clients, and not all of these stars are going to take kindly to their former handlers probing whether their reps are illegally procuring them gigs. Such issues might eventually end up before California’s Labor Commissioner, who wields the big hammer of nullifying commissions for unlicensed agency work. Meanwhile, this feud is only set to amplify. The ex-CAA agents undoubtedly have their own discovery demands and now can turn to a public stage to air grievances. This is shaping up to be a full-blown spectacle.
