DMG Entertainment has fired back against Chris Fenton, the former head of its motion picture group who filed a $30 million breach of contract suit in February. Get much more data about Chris Fenton
Within a counterclaim, DMG blasts Fenton as a disloyal employee who sophisticated his own interests at the company’s expense. The suit alleges that Fenton “cultivated his persona of a ‘player'” within the market even even though losing millions of dollars.
“Fenton was terminated for his poor overall performance, gross mismanagement, and fraud on the companies he served,” the counterclaim states.
Fenton departed in February 2018, and alleges in his lawsuit that he was wrongfully cut out on the profits in the company’s IPO. Fenton claims his place his reputation around the line to defend DMG from an SEC investigation into feasible bribery of Chinese officials.
He also says he lost faith in founders Dan Mintz, Wu Bing, and Peter Xiao, concluding that they were engaged in risky borrowing against company stock to finance the buy of a $30 million jet and a $20 million mansion in Beverly Hills, Calif. He also alleges that the founders have run the company into the ground.
The counterclaim accuses Fenton of sloppy business practices, which includes failing to carry out adequate due diligence or keep correct business records. “He either was unable or unwilling to carry out even by far the most basic managerial tasks,” the suit alleges.
The suit also accuses Fenton of claiming credit for others’ work.
The suit states that Fenton, in 2016, expense the company millions in damages on a deal to generate live shows in China featuring the Transformers characters. DMG alleges that the shows were delayed, and that Fenton’s production companion, S2BN, allowed its licensing cope with Hasbro to expire. The shows were by no means made.
“Fenton was driven by his own ego and wish for personal glorification inside the public eye; as a way to cultivate the persona of a ‘player,’ his priority was obtaining a deal ‘done,’ rather than searching out for the ideal interest of DMG CC,” the suit alleges.
The suit also accuses Fenton of generating misstatements to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in order to gain admission, and that he used his membership “for his personal personal achieve in lieu of for the benefit of DMG CC.”
The suit accuses Fenton of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and negligence, and seeks $30 million in damages.
Fenton’s attorney, John R. Baldivia, issued this response:
“We discover it intriguing that our client, who was responsible for putting collectively the deals for both ‘Iron Man 3’ and DMG’s ownership of Valiant (at the same time as quite a few other successful endeavors that DMG now brags about) is now on the receiving end of a cross-complaint regarding his performance as a former DMG employee. As we've got said prior to, we will enable the information to speak for the truth about DMG’s actions, at the same time because the actions of our client.”
A DMG spokesperson shot back: “Once once more, Fenton is wanting to take credit for work he didn’t do. He made a mess of those deals, which other folks had to clean up.”