After a year and more of fighting in court, the press & behind closed doors, UTA and Michael Kassan have buried the hatchet.
“UTA and Michael Kassan have agreed to amicably end their dispute,” said a spokesperson for the Beverly Hills agency and Kassan’s top lawyer Sanford Michelman. “The parties are not at liberty to comment further.”
Neither side offered any details of the settlement that occurred during arbitration of Kassan’s employment contract with UTA and allegations of wild spending and more. However, all the signs had indicated for the past few weeks that this was coming to an amicable end. At the same time, it looks like Kassan will not be returning to work for the agency or his MediaLink banner, I hear.
With much hoopla, UTA acquired MediaLink in 2021 for $125 million.
In March of last year, Kassan and then UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer took their dust-up public with the latter claiming the former was fired, and the consulting exec insisting he resigned — and was due a payout.
Kassan, who founded the insider oriented MediaLink, was made a partner at UTA after the deal and continued to oversee the consulting practice. Earlier this year, however, a major rift in the relationship went public, with the parties suing each other, trading allegations of fraud and breach of contract. The primary case, which was punctuated by barbs, legal and otherwise, between the opponents, ended up going to arbitration. A $125 million defamation case against UTA’s outside attorney Bryan Freedman was tossed out last May.
Today’s announcement comes five months after Zimmer, the main proponent of the MediaLink deal and Kassan’s foil according to court filings, stepped aside as UTA CEO. A new MediaLink leadership team was named by UTA in April 2024.
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