EXCLUSIVE: The closed-door war between CAA & Range Media Partners brass over rich vested equity the Bryan Lourd-led agency canceled when a quartet of agents left for other pastures six years ago, is about to go public, big time.
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And, with non-competes also in the mix, it is going to get very personal.
Especially, with the JAMS mediator spotlighting in their ruling that the CAA “Big Three,” as former Judges Judges Rosalyn Chapman, William Cahill and Luis Cardenas call Lourd, Kevin Humane and Richard Lovett were ignorant (to put it nicely) of what their fiduciary and statutory duties were and are. Responsibilities that extend to the disbursement of that equity and the co-ownership role recipients of that equity are entitled to.
In fact, in a resounding win for the claimants, the JAMS mediators insist CAA’s so-called Big Three breached their statutory and contractual fiduciary duties towards soon-to-be Range agents Dave Bugliari, Michael Cooper, Mick Sullivan and Jack Whigham in 2020 when they canceled their vested and unvested CAA equity interests. Overall, the trio of ex-judges have essentially put the whole equity program at CAA under the microscope – with tens of millions that Lourd, Humane and Lovett oversaw as de facto administrators in question.
CAA has already filed its notice of appeal over the potentially $40 million and rising decision over that equity from a trio of mediators. That was anticipated earlier this year not long after the interim arbitration ruling came down in late 2025. Simultaneously, CAA and Range continue to slug it out in L.A. Superior Court over a 2024-launched suit by the former accusing the allegedly poaching and now countersuing latter of being “an unlicensed talent agency built on deceit.”
All that may pale in scope compared to the blast radius of what was decided in arbitration taking form in the whole new action. Specifically, to paraphrase Game of Thrones, a mass action is coming.
Spearheaded by longtime Range gang attorney Bryan Freedman, the mass action (which unlike a class action sees each plaintiff represented individually and assessed for damages individually) will include Range founder and ex-CAA TV boss Peter Micelli, I hear. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, a lot of the gist of the mass action will draw deeply from the words of JAMS mediators and ex-Judges Chapman, Cahill and Cardenas. To note, nothing has been filed in court as of today. Also, CAA’s appeal of the confidential arbitration effectively hits the reset button on that matter for the next 60 days or so.
Still, looking to see who is owed what, where the equity money is and where has it been going, as well as moves to stop agents from going elsewhere, an effort is afoot to get as many past and present CAAers as humanly possible to join with Bugliari, Cooper,Sullivan and Whigham to pull open the books and accounts of the Lourd, Humane and Lovett-run agency.
This next stage of what has been a raging war between former colleagues since the dark days of the Covid-19 pandemic, represents a surge on the judicial battlefront.
“In connection with the filing of a mass arbitration or a mass action in court, we are currently in the process of representing former and current CAA talent agents who have been forced to sign illegal non competes as a condition of their membership in CAA’s equity programs,” Freedman told Deadline today.
“These agents number anywhere between dozens to hundreds of past and present equity holders in CAA who have been illegally restrained from competing through threats of losing their equity,” Freedman told Deadline of the punishing severing of those rich payouts by CAA, as was done to Bugliari, Cooper, Sullivan and Whigham upon their 2020 exit.
Add to that, a number of current and former CAAers tell Deadline they have received minimal portions of their equity in recent years. The situation has become “much worse” since CAA reorganized after the Francois-Henri Pinault-led Artémis shelled out $7 billion for a majority stake in the agency in 2023, one present member of the so-called Death Star said. “We can’t get straight answers, it’s very frustrating.”
“Former agents who lost their equity in CAA are entitled to recover damages for their lost equity,” sharp elbowed and media sharp litigator Freedman added, looking towards the Century City crowd. “Current CAA agents who hold equity are entitled to keep their equity and freely join competing talent agencies and management companies. All of these past and current CAA agents are entitled to void their illegal non competes and recover their attorneys fees and costs. In compliance with well established law, we will continue to make certain that CAA will be held legally accountable for taking away the hard earned equity of these past and present agents.”
Unlike the voluble Freedman, CAA was silent Thursday when Deadline reached out for comment on the looming mass action. Part of that may be the agency sticking to its parallel track strategy of the arbitration appeal and the LASC breach of fiduciary duty and tortious interference suit.
However, while it’s rare that an appeal of the unanimous verdict of a trio of well-respected JAMS mediators would be overturned, the fiduciary duty aspects of how CAA seems to be run may prove more than just blush-making if said verdict was say, attached to a public filing – if you know what I mean?