Prospect Park's multi-million dollar legal battle with ABC over ALL MY CHILDREN and ONE LIFE TO LIVE isn't the only courtroom drama the production company is now facing. Prospect Park chief Jeff Kwatinetz is suing the production company he co-founded as well as investor ABRY Partners, seeking to have a non-compete clause in his contract ruled invalid, according to Deadline.com.The producer and talent manager is seeking a declaratory judgment over non-compete clauses in a December 31, 2012 employment agreement he signed with Prospect Park when the Boston-based investors came on board late last year.
The catalyst of the complaint was a difference of opinion that Kwatinetz has with ABRY over the direction of the company. Specially, that disagreement has to do with the future of AMC and OLTL and whether they will continue or not.
Kwatinetz was advocating the continuation of the two series. Having said that, the producer had his lawyer Michael Taitelman file the complaint not because he intends to leave Prospect Park.
Long story short, Kwatinetz wants a judge to decide if the “unenforceable non-competition and non-solicitation provision” would actually prevented him from working for another company for 5 years and if Prospect and ABRY could get an injunction to force him to work for them for 5 years if he attempted to leave. “In addition, the Guarantee contains what is essentially a $5,000,000 liquidated damages penalty for a ‘breach’ of the unenforceable non-competition provision and employment term requirements in the Agreement,” the 10-claim complaint filed on November 21 in LA Superior Court adds (read it here).
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