Disney steps in legal Pooh
A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has made several rulings against Walt Disney Co. in a bitter lawsuit with a small Florida firm over hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties from the sale of Winnie the Pooh merchandise.
A judge in August sanctioned Disney $90,000 for destroying 40 boxes of documents, including one labeled “Winnie the Pooh–legal problems.”
The suit was filed 11 years ago by Stephen Slesinger Inc., which holds merchandising rights to the Winnie the Pooh characters. The Slesinger family maintains that Disney has cheated them out of at least $200 million in royalties on Pooh-related videocassettes, DVDs, computer software and merchandise sold in Disney theme parks. Hiroshige wrote that Disney “knew or should have known” that Slesinger’s lawyers would be interested in the destroyed documents, and that Disney “made false and evasive responses” to requests by the lawyers for the evidence, according to court papers.
The trial is expected to begin later this year and could reveal the value of the lucrative Pooh franchise, which some analysts say in some years has generated more than $4 billion for Disney and its licensees.
Full story from the Los Angeles Times
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