CAA has sued Peter Micelli’s Range Media Partners, alleging that Range associates spied on “confidential” meetings and, in stealing that information, violated the California business code.
In legal documents filed on Monday and obtained by TheWrap, CAA claims, “Range is an unlicensed talent agency built on deceit” and that Micelli “found four highly paid CAA leaders to act as his accomplices” while “covertly working to benefit Range and themselves, and to harm CAA.”
The lawsuit names Jack Whigham, David Bugliari, Michael Cooper,
and Mick Sullivan as the “accomplices,” alleging that they “carried out a scheme designed to give Range an unlawful competitive edge” and stole information from confidential meetings for the months leading up to Range’s launch. They “sought to benefit Range by breaching their obligations to CAA and causing other CAA employees to do the same.”
Micelli left CAA in 2018 and publicly announced the launch of Range in August 2020, when Whigham, Bugliari, Cooper and Sullivan joined the company.
The Range founders, according to the lawsuit, “knew they were engaging in misconduct and tried to cover their tracks to avoid getting caught,” with such alleged measures as asking junior CAA employees to download encrypted messaging apps to avoid CAA detecting their communications and telling CAA employees to export confidential information to the accomplices’ personal email accounts and cellphones.
“CAA is prepared to prove that Range Media was formed through dishonest conduct and, as reflected in other public, pending legal proceedings about Range’s failure to comply with arbitration subpoenas, has concealed evidence of its founders’ actions,” CAA counsel Elena Baca of Paul Hastings LLP told TheWrap in a statement Tuesday.
“Peter Micelli, along with his accomplices who were at CAA while founding Range, conducted a lengthy scheme to enrich themselves in ways that violated their contracts and legal obligations to CAA, talent guild regulations, and ethical boundaries, as CAA will demonstrate in court,” the statement continued.
Baca added: “CAA will fiercely protect the agency against improper market conduct and the misuse of its confidential information.”
TheWrap has reached out Range for comment.
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