CAA has accused a handful of former agents of betraying the agency by stealing confidential client information to form Range Media Partners , a rival management firm. In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday, the powerhouse agency alleges that the agents spent months in 2020 sending volumes of CAA data — including clients’ ongoing and future projects, their branding strategies and business plans — to their personal email accounts and cell phones. The agents also downloaded Telegram, a private messaging app, to avoid being detected by CAA, the suit alleges.
The lawsuit alleges that Range hatched a plan to launch the management firm to get around California law and Writers Guild of America requirements. “Range is an unlicensed talent agency built on deceit,” the lawsuit states. “The core ‘trick’ of Range is that it acts as a talent agency but labels itself a management company.
Range thereby engages in lucrative transactions foreclosed to law-abiding talent agencies.” Peter Micelli, one of the founders of Range, worked at CAA for more than 20 years, and was co-head of the TV department when he left in 2018. According to the suit, he recruited four other CAA agents — Jack Whigham, David Bugliari, Michael Cooper, and Mick Sullivan — to join the new management firm in early 2020.
The suit accuses the agents of sitting in on meetings and gathering intel for their breakaway venture while still employed at CAA. Those agents in turn solicited CA.