Kemo
03-05-2016, 10:51 PM
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Last August, WWE sued CTH Content Company, their TV partner in Thailand. Essentially, from the first quarterly invoice of the contract (covering the first quarter of 2014), CTH just didn’t pay WWE the agreed upon licensing fee, which was $560,000 per quarter in 2014 and $728,000 per quarter in 2015. CTH also never provided WWE a bank guarantee for each year’s total license fee, something else that they were required to do under the contract Throughout that whole period, CTH was running WWE programming. CTH never replied to the lawsuit, and on Thursday the judge entered a default judgment in favor of WWE in the amount of the full five year contract plus interest on the late payments:
ORDER granting 16 Motion for Default Judgment pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 55, as the Plaintiff’s claim is for a sum certain and is supported by affidavits showing the amount due. The Clerk is directed to enter judgment against Defendants CTH Content Company Limited and CTH Public Company Limited, jointly and severally, in the total amount of 23,387,360.76, representing liquidated damages of $22,942,500 and contractual interest of $444,860.76. Plaintiff may file a motion for supplemental judgment with an affidavit demonstrating Plaintiff’s entitlement to any interest for the period from 11/1/16 to 3/3/16. Signed by Judge Vanessa L. Bryant on 3/3/16.
With CTH being based out of Thailand and WWE winning a judgment in federal district court in Connecticut, it’s unclear if they have any chance of collecting the monetary award. This was not the first time WWE had to file such a lawsuit against a TV partner in that part of the world, as in 2013, they sued Solar Entertainment in the Philippines for similar non-payment issues. In that case, they had been doing business with Solar since 2007 when the problems arose. They also sued a South Korean home video distributor for non-payment in 2003 as well as filing another lawsuit in 2010 against a Portuguese clothing licensee for illegally sub-licensing to a different company in France.
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As far as any kind of interesting information surfacing in the lawsuit, there was a little bit, as WWE included their licensing agreement as an exhibit. That included the itemized list of how much CTH was paying (well, supposed to pay) for each WWE TV show:
For 2014, the first year of the contract (it went up each year), the full three hour version of Raw was the most expensive show per episode at $13,461.54 ($700,000 per year).
Vintage Collection was the cheapest at $1,076.92 per episode ($56,000 per year).
NXT was the second lowest priced show, at $1,615.38 per episode ($84,000 per year). No other shows were under $100,000 per year.
By comparison, Superstars and Main Event (as well as recap show AfterBurn for some reason) were $5,384.62 per episode ($284,000 per year).
The other recap shows, Bottom Line, WWE Experience, and This Week In WWE, were exactly half the “C-show” price, which SmackDown doubled the “C-shows,” though it was the same price per hour of programming. That says a lot about the value of Smackdown in 2014, or it least it seems that way.
Last August, WWE sued CTH Content Company, their TV partner in Thailand. Essentially, from the first quarterly invoice of the contract (covering the first quarter of 2014), CTH just didn’t pay WWE the agreed upon licensing fee, which was $560,000 per quarter in 2014 and $728,000 per quarter in 2015. CTH also never provided WWE a bank guarantee for each year’s total license fee, something else that they were required to do under the contract Throughout that whole period, CTH was running WWE programming. CTH never replied to the lawsuit, and on Thursday the judge entered a default judgment in favor of WWE in the amount of the full five year contract plus interest on the late payments:
ORDER granting 16 Motion for Default Judgment pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 55, as the Plaintiff’s claim is for a sum certain and is supported by affidavits showing the amount due. The Clerk is directed to enter judgment against Defendants CTH Content Company Limited and CTH Public Company Limited, jointly and severally, in the total amount of 23,387,360.76, representing liquidated damages of $22,942,500 and contractual interest of $444,860.76. Plaintiff may file a motion for supplemental judgment with an affidavit demonstrating Plaintiff’s entitlement to any interest for the period from 11/1/16 to 3/3/16. Signed by Judge Vanessa L. Bryant on 3/3/16.
With CTH being based out of Thailand and WWE winning a judgment in federal district court in Connecticut, it’s unclear if they have any chance of collecting the monetary award. This was not the first time WWE had to file such a lawsuit against a TV partner in that part of the world, as in 2013, they sued Solar Entertainment in the Philippines for similar non-payment issues. In that case, they had been doing business with Solar since 2007 when the problems arose. They also sued a South Korean home video distributor for non-payment in 2003 as well as filing another lawsuit in 2010 against a Portuguese clothing licensee for illegally sub-licensing to a different company in France.
zuteHSooD6E
As far as any kind of interesting information surfacing in the lawsuit, there was a little bit, as WWE included their licensing agreement as an exhibit. That included the itemized list of how much CTH was paying (well, supposed to pay) for each WWE TV show:
For 2014, the first year of the contract (it went up each year), the full three hour version of Raw was the most expensive show per episode at $13,461.54 ($700,000 per year).
Vintage Collection was the cheapest at $1,076.92 per episode ($56,000 per year).
NXT was the second lowest priced show, at $1,615.38 per episode ($84,000 per year). No other shows were under $100,000 per year.
By comparison, Superstars and Main Event (as well as recap show AfterBurn for some reason) were $5,384.62 per episode ($284,000 per year).
The other recap shows, Bottom Line, WWE Experience, and This Week In WWE, were exactly half the “C-show” price, which SmackDown doubled the “C-shows,” though it was the same price per hour of programming. That says a lot about the value of Smackdown in 2014, or it least it seems that way.