Posted on 03/17/2007 9:09:50 AM PDT by doug from upland
Stan was the majority shareholder. After the BK was dismissed, the company was reconstituted with new officers. The new group filed the lawsuit. Stan was given notice to attending the meeting but chose not to do so.
What is really interesting is that the counsel for the debtor in possession made a motion at the end of the BK to destroy the corporate records. That's pretty interesting.
bookmark
All attorneys are schmucks.
-ccm
Thanks for bring back that link. New Media Journal did a great series of 7 articles. Unfortunately, the MSM has chosen to ignore the story since Rosen's acquittal.
http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/03/16/stan-lee-media-sues-marvel-for-5b/
Stan Lee Media Sues Marvel for $5B
A classic story of intrigue, double crosses, runaway financiers, campaign skullduggery, and Stan Lee got yet another chapter underway when it was announced that Stan Lee Media is suing Marvel for a cool $5B. The one-time new media venture claims that it co-owns Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Incredible Hulk.
How is this possible? You thought Stan Lee Media went down in flames in the first dot.bomb crash? And Stan Lee was long gone and moved on to POW! Entertainment? And renegade co-owner Peter Paul was busy planning to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid with stories of improprieties from her senate run?
While the colorful Paul is not involved in this chapter, it seems STAN LEE MEDIA has been resurrected by Jim Nesfield, a self described “Whistleblower” who has appeared on 60 Minutes to talk about mutual fund malfeasance and so on. And Nesfield is claiming that contracts Lee signed while still involved are still in effect.
He said Mr. Lee signed a contract in October 1998 that assigned co-creative interests to Stan Lee Media. Unfortunately for Stan Lee Media, the same rights were assigned to Marvel.
“Stan Lee is no longer with the company, but the contract remains intact,” he said. “He has signed it and the contract is still in force.” He added that Mr. Lee may be called to testify if the case goes to trial.
He said the contract had been hidden from the public and Mr. Nesfield has filed suit on behalf of the shareholders to assert their rights. He said they are entitled to 50 percent of all revenue going back three years and going forward 50 years. They can only go back three years by law, but not as far back as 1998.
Meanwhile, in its own statement on the suit Marvel reveals that Stan is himself suing Stan Lee Media.
Stan Lee Media was recently in bankruptcy and is being sued by Stan Lee. In his suit, Mr. Lee is challenging the legitimacy of the management of Stan Lee Media. Mr. Lee is a long-time employee of Marvel and its predecessor companies and currently serves as Publisher Emeritus of Marvel Comics. Mr. Lee commented that, “I do not support this action and believe the suit to be baseless.”
This entire story is so tangled that it would take weeks just to read the court documents. For some entertaining background, Dirk links to this entertaining Michael Dean news story that hints just how crazy and nutty Stan Lee Media’s business dealings really were.
This entry was posted on 03/16/07 at 11:45 am and is filed under Marvel, Legal Matters, Business News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
7 Responses to “Stan Lee Media Sues Marvel for $5B”
Primate Says:
03/16/07 at 12:55 pm
I propose a new superhero team composed solely of characetrs with rights issues. Miracelman is leader, with Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Incredible Hulk as the core team. Superboy fills the role of the wide-eyed newcomer to the team, with the Batman role filled by Medievel Spawn. Their headquarters would be styled like one of those legal file document boxes. The title of the book would be THE RED TAPERS or THE LITIGATIONS or some such.
Sphinx Magoo Says:
03/16/07 at 1:33 pm
My brain… it hurts…
cary coatney Says:
03/16/07 at 2:27 pm
This is so…schizophrenic.
~
Coat
angrytrousers Says:
03/17/07 at 2:14 pm
If you want another example of why you should never name a company after yourself, see Paul Frank Industries:
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/money/homepage/article_1057559.php
Love Uncle Sean Says:
03/17/07 at 3:22 pm
This reminds me of Doc Holliday’s last words in the movie Tombstone:…
“This is funny”
So, Stan Lee Media has filed a lawsuit against Marvel Comics for about $5 Billion dollars. Now, here’s the thing that had me confused at first: “Why would Stan Lee sue Marvel, if he wanted to settle that sort of …
James Says:
03/17/07 at 5:36 pm
The interesting thing here is that they are suing *after* going through bankruptcy. So a judge let a possible $5 billion dollar asset slip through bankruptcy untouched? Hmmm…
dougfromupland Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
03/17/07 at 7:54 pm
Some of you might find this interesting. Here is the contract signed by Stan on Oct. 15, 1998 and the contract then signed with Marvel on Nov. 1, 1998.
OCT. 15, 1998 CONTRACT between Lee and Stan Lee Media: http://www.secinfo.com/dsVsb.5Dg.1z.htm
NOV. 1, 1998 CONTRACT between Lee and Marvel: http://contracts.onecle.com/marvel/lee.emp.1998.11.01.shtml
Here is the warranty Stan made to Marvel:
5
(b) You hereby warrant that you have not assigned, licensed, pledged or
otherwise hypothecated, nor attempted to do so any of the Property and
Rights to anyone other than Marvel, its affiliates, predecessors or
their designees and will not do so in the future.
dougfromupland Says:
03/17/07 at 8:05 pm
JAMES: the BK was amazing. Stan pulled out certain properties with court approval subject to him forming a new company called SLC LLC and developing the properties for the benefit of shareholders. That company was never formed. What is even more interesting is that some of those properties were transferred to POW! Entertainment. How was that possible with the BK court not being involved? What happened to the secured lien on those properties? During the final motions before dismissal, the counsel for the debtor in possession actually made a motion TO DESTROY CORPORATE RECORDS! Is someone trying to hide something?
You are going to find something interesting from this case and the civil case of Paul v Clinton coming to Los Angeles Superior Court this year. Paul spent over $1.6 mil on Hillary’s campaign with the promise that Bill would come aboard as a rainmaker for one year after he left the White House. He was going to be paid $15 mil in stock and cash. Behind the scenes, Clinton’s business partner Jim Levin use proprietary information to steal SLM’s Japanese investor Tendo Oto for himself and Clinton. Oto had already given SLM $5 mil in August 2000 for the Japanese joint venture. He promised another $5-7 mil for VentureSoft in the U.S. Six days after Hillary was elected, Levin had recorded with the Sec. of State in Illinois his agreement with Oto (and silent partner Bill). When Oto’s money did not come in November as promised, the cash crunch killed the company. Had Oto done what he had promised, the company would have had plenty of money to survive until Clinton came aboard. Clinton would have raised a huge sum of money and this company would have been a goldmine. See the video explaining what the Clintons did — http://youtube.com/watch?v=LUWlxc7h5AI
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6464095.stm
Dispute over Spider-Man ownership
An internet publishing firm is taking legal action against comic book company Marvel, claiming part-ownership of superheroes such as Spider-Man.
Associated Press reported the case was filed in New York last week by Stan Lee Media, a company originally co-founded by Spider-Man creator Stan Lee.
Now under new ownership, the firm claims Lee signed away rights to his famous comic book creations in 1998.
Marvel deemed the legal action "without merit", while Lee called it "baseless".
"I do not support this action and believe the suit to be baseless," said a statement released on behalf of the 84-year-old Lee by Marvel.
Lee's comic book characters include the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk and the Fantastic Four.
Bankruptcy
Stan Lee Media, which has re-emerged from bankruptcy six years ago, claims Lee signed away his rights to the comic book characters in 1998 when the company launched, in exchange for a salary and company stock.
It claims the agreement entitles Stan Lee Media to a 50% cut of the profits made by Marvel from licensing comic book characters to the film industry.
The second sequel in the Spider-Man series opens in May
Earlier this year, Lee took legal action challenging the legitimacy of Stan Lee's Media current management, calling them "rogue opportunists".
Lee founded Stan Lee Media with Miami businessman Peter F Paul in 1998, in a bid to bring some of his comic book creations to the web.
Despite early success on the stock market, the company crashed losing millions in investment, and prompting the firm to file for bankruptcy in 2001.
In 2005, Mr Paul pleaded guilty to improperly manipulating the company's stock price. Lee was never implicated in the scandal.
After his own legal battle with Marvel in 2005, which saw a judge uphold Lee's demand for 10% of Marvel's profits from the Spider-Man films, Lee is currently Publisher Emeritus at Marvel.
Blockbuster sequel Spider-Man 3, starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, is released in May this year.
We should all check through
our closets. One of us might
own Spider-Man rights!
I guess I don't understand your point, but if you found an agreement in your closet in which Stan signed over rights to you that was executed before Oct. 15, 1998, maybe you own something.
This is funny. I had not seen it before.
Stan vs. 'Striperella'
Excerpted from The Comics Journal #255
By Michael Dean
Posted October 3rd, 2003
A July 9 lawsuit filed by Janet Clover against Viacom TV Networks, Pamela Anderson and Stan Lee over intellectual property allegedly stolen from Clover while she was dancing in Lee's lap is being retooled. Though the original suit was withdrawn Aug. 15, she said she plans to re-file, this time with the help of attorneys -- and direct the suit specifically at Lee. "I'm actually going after Stan Lee," she told the Journal.
Clover had filed the suit in Volusia County, Fla., Circuit Court to stop the cablecast of an animated series about a stripper/superheroine called Stripperella on the Viacom-owned TNN/Spike. Clover's suit asserted that, even though the look of Stripperella is based on Clover's appearance and the title and concept for the series is taken from her stage name and role as an advocate for "sensual dancers," she has received no credit or compensation. In the course of a private dance at the Tanga Lounge in Tampa, Clover had described to Lee her double life as a nurse and a stripper and her efforts to better the lives of strippers under the name Stripperella, she told the Journal.
A couple of months after that, she said, Lee's plans for the cable cartoon were announced. The show features a Pamela-Anderson-voiced stripper who fights crime in her off hours with the help of glass-cutting nipples, a lie-detecting bosom and a digitally scanning tongue.
Representatives of Viacom, Stan Lee and Pamela Anderson have made no public comment on the matter. Before attorneys for the defendants could even move to have the suit dismissed, Clover moved to dismiss her own suit.
Clover filed the original suit herself without a lawyer. "I had an attorney," she told the Journal, "but she wanted $6,000 to file the suit -- just to get started. There's no way I can afford that."
The suit was filed in the name of the Office of the Professional Nurse Advocate -- Moral and Ethical Division, but that impressive-sounding office was not in a position to provide Clover with legal assistance. In fact, it exists only in Clover's head, as a proposal for an international organization for setting standards of practice in the nursing profession. The proposal, she said, is still being considered by the "Office of the High Commission" in Switzerland. In response to questions from the Journal, she admitted that she had filed the suit under that name because she felt it would sound more respectable and serious than a suit filed by a semi-retired stripper. "As soon as you say you're a dancer, all these prejudices come in," she said.
Of legal necessity, however, the suit also listed Clover as a complainant -- aka Jazz in Daytona, Jacksonville and Cocoa Beach gentlemen's clubs, aka Jaz in Tampa Bay clubs, aka JC in Miami and Holy Hill, aka Stripperella.
It was her stripper status and Pamela Anderson's name that caught the attention of the local press. A small story in the Daytona Beach News-Journal was picked up by Associated Press and the national media and made its way to People and Entertainment Weekly. Those stories in turn caught the attention of attorneys throughout the country. "The attorneys in New York are very cool," Clover said. "Quite a few have contacted me about it."
One of the cool things about these attorneys is that they are willing to work on a contingency basis. When the Journal spoke with her, Clover was trying to decide between a plethora of options. She had not yet chosen which attorneys would officially represent her and was vacillating between filing her new suit in Florida (convenient for Clover and her witnesses) or in New York (convenient for her prospective attorneys). All the lawyers agree there's a lawsuit in Clover's complaint, but they're undecided about the nature of the suit. Clover's original suit accused the defendants of appropriating Clover's stage name and likeness and asked for nothing more specific than an injunction against the cable show, something of a moot point since the show has now begun airing. The new suit may be a trademark- or copyright-infringement complaint or it may be a class-action suit on behalf of the nation's exotic dancers. In either case, it would need to be filed in a federal court rather than in the local circuit court, where the aborted suit had been filed.
In her complaint, Clover protested in distinctly unlawyerlike language the damage she anticipated the Stripperella show would do to the public image of sensual entertainers: "When they turn on their television to watch an animated gyrating pelvis hidden in a man's face, acceptance of professional dancers as healthy sensual entertainers will not happen." Clover had not actually seen the show at the time she composed her suit, however. She saw the show for the first time the night before she spoke with the Journal, and was pleasantly surprised. "I didn't have a problem with the cartoon," she said. "I thought it was actually kind of cute."
One bit she did have a problem with was a scene in which Kid Rock tells a Stripperella lookalike in the audience that there's only one Stripperella. Clover took that to be a slam at her and her suit. She also objected to a Spin magazine appearance by Anderson as Stripperella in which the faux stripper dispensed advice to troubled exotic dancers.
What most bothers her, Clover said, is that Lee has failed to give credit where credit is due for the origins of his Stripperella concept.
It was Clover's fellow dancers, she said, who first noticed that a past visitor to the club was being interviewed on the Internet and talking about a stripper superheroine. "They were like, 'Oh my God, you have to check this out,'" Clover told the Journal. "They showed me a picture and said, 'Dude, he was here!'"
Though, she said, "he looked different," she quickly recognized her stage name and her life in his planned TV project and remembered talking at length with Lee two months earlier about her Stripperella alter ego. Angered that Lee had failed to identify the source of "his" idea, she said, she immediately went about trying to contact him: "I tried getting a hold of him, but he's hiding from me. I got no response. If I just had five minutes alone with him..."
The Journal interrupted to say it understood that she had had five minutes alone with him.
"It was more than five minutes, if you want to know the truth," she said. "I'll tell you something. If you have time alone with someone like that -- it doesn't matter what they do for a living or what they look like -- you either find someone you can enjoy talking to and spending time with or you don't. With him, I'll just say I would have forgotten all about him, except the customers and the dancers started bringing in these articles."
Later, though, when the Journal commented that Lee couldn't have been that dull a companion if she had talked with him at such length, she said, "Oh yes, he was a fascinating man or I would never have spent that much time with him. It makes everything more personal, more real, if you get to know the person you're dancing for. But I remembered him coming in moreso because of the $80 he ended up owing me. He didn't pay for the dance the second time."
"He came twice... ?" the Journal started to ask.
"Be careful how you say that," Clover interrupted. "I met him at the club two different times."
Asked how much time passed between the two times she saw Lee, she said, both visits had been within a two-week period. "He described himself as an artist and I think he had two or three people with him," she told the Journal.
"Don't the dancers get paid up front?" the Journal asked.
"We're supposed to," she said, following her answer with a dramatic sigh.
[To read the rest of this article, please see The Comics Journal #255.]
http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/03/16/stan-lee-media-sues-marvel-for-5b/
Dan Morgan Says:
03/18/07 at 7:48 am
The Spider Man suit by Stan Lee Media’s new president, Wall Street Whistleblower Jim Nesfield, who exposed the Trillion Dollar Multual Fund Market Timing Scandal in 2004, will uncover a number of scandals. One relates to how Wall Street uses Intellectual property to create derivative securities based on voodoo accounting projections of future revenues of movies etc. Another relates to how Stan Lee has colluded with Marvel to hide his ownership of co-creator’s rights to all his creations from marvel shareholders and lenders and how Stan was paid off by Marvel in its secret $15 million settlement of the contract Stan made in November 1998 based on rights he had just sold to SLM. Finally, it will expose Hillary Clinton’s $100,000 election law fraud using Stan Lee as a front for money donated by Peter Paul- SLM’s 3rd Q 10Q November, 2000 details how Lee used a loan from SLM to give $100,000 to NY Senate 2000 in Lee’s name and then get reimbursement from Peter Paul-hiding Paul as the real donor. Keep watching
Does this mean Stan Lee
has a fatal "heart attack"
coming sometime soon?
Well, Stan is pretty old. And Hillary is pretty ruthless.
Stan Lee has no right to complain about the newly constituted Stan Lee Media. To his home was sent a copy of the PUBLIC NOTICE of a meeting of the shareholders. He had the right to attend, but he chose not to do so. After the debtor in possession had their counsel make a motion to DESTROY CORPORATE RECORDS, the shareholders had no choice but to hold a meeting and protect the shareholders.
http://media-newswire.com/release_1039723.html
Stan Lee Media of Colorado Shareholder Meeting
Stan Lee Media of Colorado Shareholder Meeting
(Media-Newswire.com) - Stan Lee Media Inc of Colorado Notice of Special Shareholders Meeting December 7th , 2006
The President of the company hereby notices all shareholders of record of common voting stock in Stan Lee Media Inc of Colorado that a Special Meeting of Shareholders will be held at the corporation's principal office, located at 32 Goshen Road, Engelhard, NC 27824, at 9:00am December 7th , 2006, pursuant to the Bylaws of the company.
Matters to be presented to the shareholders:
1. Settlement with creditors
2. Recapitaliziation of company's equity.
3. Defining the business objectives of the company
5. Consideration of actions to be taken to assert rights owned by the company and recover damages
4. Ratifyication of Special Shareholders meeting November 15th 2006
James Nesfield, President and CEO
Additional Information
Publisher: James Nesfield
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Stan is now suing POW! for a billion regarding POW! sale of assets to a Chinese company. Stan looted the assets for POW! in the Stan Lee Media BK. That looting was overturned in 2009. I had turned in Stan to the US Atty in Los Angeles and informed the BK trustee of his fraud but nothing was done to him.
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