The Inbox - June 6, 2012

The latest developments in suits by suits:

• When Brian Wittenstein left his job as talent coordinator at Total Nonstop Action (TNA) Wrestling for TNA’s competitor, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), he apparently took a lot of TNA confidential information with him.  Now TNA is brawling with WWE and Wittenstein in court.   TNA’s lawsuit acknowledges that WWE told TNA that Wittenstein had given it the confidential information and fired him.  But TNA alleges that WWE conspired with Wittenstein to get the documents, delayed for three weeks before it told TNA about the disclosures, and is now using the secret details of Nature Boy Ric Flair’s contract to solicit him to join WWE.  PWInsider.com.

• Did this Toronto Blue Jay chatter too much?  After Patrick Elster, the team’s former vice president of ticket sales, sued the team for breaching his severance agreement, the Blue Jays counterclaimed that he breached first by disclosing the team’s revenue figures, attendance, and details of layoffs to the press.  The club is seeking $300,000 from Elster, who argues that none of the facts he discussed were actually confidential.  
• The trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of brokerage firm MF Global says he may sue Jon Corzine, the former head of the company (and former New Jersey governor), for breach of fiduciary duty and negligence after the firm’s collapse.  In a 275-page report to the bankruptcy court, the trustee, James Giddens, wrote that Cozine personally directed MF Global to start trading European debt securities.  Giddens also said that Corzine was partly responsible for the disappearance of $1.6 billion from firm coffers.  Boston Globe.
• A showdown in Texas–the Harris County Housing Authority (Houston, Texas) and its former CEO, Guy Rankin IV, are fighting over Rankin’s $137,000 severance agreement.  The agreement, signed March 21, required the Authority to pay Rankin within a week.  But the interim boss told him the Authority didn’t have the cash, so Rankin sued a month later for breach of contract.  Now the Authority claims that it was fraudulently induced into signing the agreement and is protected by sovereign immunity.  Rankin’s lawyers, meanwhile, have moved for summary judgment, attempting to get a quick resolution to his claims.  Houston Chronicle.

• Breach of Contract
• Confidentiality
• Summary Judgment
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