Michael Kassan leaves MediaLink amid legal fight with owner UTA

The latest: Breaking down UTA’s lawsuit against Kassan Michael Kassan, the highly influential marketing industry executive, has left his post as MediaLink CEO amid a legal fight with parent company United Talent Agency. Kassan accused UTA of breaching his contract and acting in bad faith, according to a demand for arbitration filed March 12, while UTA alleges that Kassan was “terminated by cause,” accusing him of a “misappropriation of company funds.” UTA filed a lawsuit against Kassan, though it was not publicly available as of publication. Kassan is seeking at least $25 million in compensatory damages. Among the other charges leveled in Kassan’s arbitration filing that was posted by Variety: UTA told MediaLink to raise client prices, declined to invest in MediaLink and shrunk its marketing spending, “curbing Kassan’s ability to continue with his vision to build a community.” Kassan’s allegations, in documents filed with mediation service JAMS, list UTA CEO Jeremy Zimmer and partners David Anderson and Julian Jacobs as defendants, whom Kassan accuses of engaging in a “deliberate secret scheme to fraudulently induce Kassan to agree to a sale of MediaLink … only to then walk back the very promises made in the purchase contract, specifically regarding what Kassan would oversee at UTA and his ‘Special Expenses.’” See all of Ad Age’s 2024 Agency A-List winners here UTA acquired MediaLink from Cannes Lions owner Ascential for $125 million in 2021. MediaLink, which Kassan founded in 2003, is among the most influential organizations in the ad industry, with Kassan often at the center of high-stakes agency searches. MediaLink, for instance, is currently assisting General Motors as it evaluates its media model and CRM agency roster. Kassan alleges that Zimmer told Anderson and Jacobs that they “could ignore him and their obligation to report to Kassan, and in exchange, Zimmer then made them ‘Partners’ at UTA after the deal was signed.” Kassan did not immediately return requests for comment. UTA in a statement to Ad Age on Wednesday said Kassan was terminated for cause on March 7, “following a thorough and exhaustive third-party investigation into misappropriation of company funds. We filed a lawsuit against him today and look forward to presenting the facts in court.” The lawsuit, to be filed in California Superior Court, was not immediately available. A key issue, according to an arbitration document filed by Kassan, is a $1.5 million pool of “special expenses” that the document says had been paid annually by Ascential and that UTA agreed to continue. The document says that UTA thereafter began objecting to the expense pool and that Zimmer “conducted a sham audit of Kassan’s spending to fabricate a justification specifically to reduce the Special Expenses budget Kassan had been promised.” Zimmer frequently commented that high spending was how Kassan “rolls,” according to the document. Among the other allegations cited in the document is that UTA objected to Kassan’s use of “private aviation.” The arbitration filing by Kassan also alleged that he resigned from UTA “after two long years of Kassan battling Zimmer’s repeated broken promises,” but that Zimmer “tried to reject” it, instead firing Kassan for cause, “based on Kassan’s marketing spend and charitable giving which UTA alleged was too high and inappropriate.” The document alleges that Kassan forfeited $10 million in severance by resigning.

Michael Kassan leaves MediaLink amid legal fight with owner UTA

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