On October 27, 2011, Hollywood Media Corp. (“Hollywood Media”), together with National Amusements Inc. and the MovieTickets.com Joint Venture, filed a lawsuit against AMC Entertainment Inc. (“AMC”) and MovieTickets.com Inc. (as nominal defendant) (Case No. 50 2011 CA 016684) in the Circuit Court of the 15th Judicial Circuit in and for Palm Beach County, Florida relating to the MovieTickets.com Joint Venture. MovieTickets.com is an online movie ticketing service in which Hollywood Media, National Amusements, Inc., and AMC each own a 26.2% equity interest. MovieTickets.com has exclusive ticketing arrangements with 238 movie theater chain exhibitors, as well as contracts with 190 distributors operating 910 website and online destinations. MovieTickets.com has approximately 18 million registered online users.
The complaint alleges that AMC has breached and continues to breach the MovieTickets.com Joint Venture Agreement, which obligates AMC to exclusively provide its ticket inventory to MovieTickets.com, and has breached its contractual, statutory, and common law duties of good faith, fair dealing, and loyalty with respect to the MovieTickets.com Joint Venture and its partners, Hollywood Media and National Amusements, Inc., as a result of various actions by AMC. The complaint alleges that these actions include, among other things, (i) AMC failing and refusing to provide the movie theater ticket inventory of Loews and Kerasotes (both of which were acquired by AMC) to MovieTickets.com for Internet ticketing, (ii) ticketing its Loews and Kerasotes ticket inventory through a MovieTickets.com competitor, (iii) anticipatorily repudiating its obligations to the MovieTickets.com Joint Venture, (iv) AMC engaging in negotiations with a competitor to MovieTickets.com and other exhibitors regarding business transactions in competition with MovieTickets.com, and (v) otherwise acting solely for its own benefit to the detriment of its partners in the MovieTickets.com Joint Venture.
Hollywood Media and the other plaintiffs have asked for a jury trial and are seeking unspecified consequential damages and have reserved the right to seek punitive damages. Hollywood Media and the other plaintiffs also are seeking a declaratory judgment that AMC is obligated to make available on MovieTickets.com’s website AMC’s ticket inventory for sale on an exclusive basis and to honor its contractual, common law, and statutory fiduciary duties of good faith and loyalty to the MovieTickets.com Joint Venture and its partners, Hollywood Media and National Amusements, Inc.
SIGNATURE