The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. (HFPA), the group that originally founded the Golden Globe Awards, filed an antitrust lawsuit against media mogul Jay Penske, Penske Media Corporation, the Golden Globe Foundation and others, over the acquisition of the popular award show.
The suit filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, on Monday, claims the 2023 purchase of the Golden Globes was a “sham process tainted by fraud” and is seeking damages of at least $150 million.
Penske and the other named defendants, “orchestrated and participated in a clandestine scheme to fraudulently acquire the Golden Globe Awards, dismantle the HFPA, and exert monopolistic control over Hollywood trades and the awards circuit thereby violating California’s antitrust and consumer protection statutes,” according to the complaint.
A spokesperson for Penske Media and the Golden Globes denied the allegations in a statement.
“Today’s lawsuit continues the absurdity and irrationality that the industry has come to expect from the defunct organization formerly known as the HFPA.”
The suit accuses Jay Penske, whose company owns many of the Hollywood trade publications including Variety, of having “colluded” with Todd Boehly, the billionaire chairman of private equity firm Eldridge Industries, the parent company of longtime Golden Globes producer Dick Clark Productions, to purchase the 80-year-old award show through a “corrupt Asset Purchase Agreement (the ‘APA’).”
Penske and Boehly have significant ownership stakes in several film and television production companies such as A24 Films and MRC.
Boehly declined to comment for this story.
The suit argues that owning the Golden Globes would “solidify a vertical and horizontal monopoly on the awards market.” At the same time it would enable them “to control and exclude” members of the domestic and foreign press and to “control the entertainment news disseminated to the general public, while maintaining a monopoly over streams of advertising revenue in that market.”
In 2022, the HFPA voted to accept a proposal by Boehly, then its interim chief executive, that would transform the nonprofit international journalists’ group into a for-profit venture.
At the time, the organization was engaged in rehabilitating its image and getting back into Hollywood’s good graces.
NBC had dropped the broadcast of the 2022 Globes, a contingent of powerful publicists boycotted the organization and studios including Netflix and WarnerMedia cut ties with the HFPA, following the 2021 Los Angeles Times investigation that raised questions about the group’s ethical and financial lapses and revealed that not one of the then-87 members was Black.
Under Boehly, the revamped organization, the Golden Globes Assn. (later renamed the Golden Globes LLC) would operate under the Eldridge umbrella, with the group’s members becoming paid employees.
The new private entity would manage its Golden Globes assets while maintaining the charitable and philanthropic programs in a separate nonprofit entity.
However, according to the suit, Penske and Boehly “surreptitiously instigated a boycott of the HFPA and the 2022 Golden Globes” using Penske’s entertainment trade publications such as The Hollywood Reporter to devalue the organization and make it vulnerable to an acquisition.” They then used the boycott as a “pretext for Boehly to infiltrate the HFPA and acquire the Golden Globes.”
Following the acquisition, the complaint alleges that the Golden Globe Foundation (GGF), the successor to the HFPA’s charitable arm which was supposed to be an independent non-profit, instead, became “an extension of the for-profit entity Penske and Boehly formed.”
The suit alleges that Penske, Boehly and the GGF, aided by Gregory Goeckner, the HFPA’s former general counsel who became the new foundation’s CEO have “unlawfully” used the charitable foundation’s assets, diverting them “to serve Penske and Boehly’s non-charitable commercial interests, in clear violation of charitable asset protection laws.”
Among the purposes cited in the suit include an attempt “to use more than $275,000 in charitable funds for the for-profit Globes LLC’s Golden Globes viewing party.”
Goeckner, is also accused of conspiring with Penske and Boehly to “fraudulently induce” the transfer of $4 million from the HFPA to the new foundation in an effort to force the organization to “cripple the HFPA before their and others’ malfeasance in connection with the APA could be brought to light.”
Under the new entity, HFPA members could only become GGF members if they accepted employment with Boehly and Penske’s for-profit company, according to the complaint. A stipulation that HFPA members claim that they were made aware of only after they voted to approve the acquisition.
Moreover, the filing claims that the new entity reneged on a number of promises, including that members would keep their lifetime voting rights as well as their lifetime tickets to the award show.
“The attempt by former HFPA members to leverage the Golden Globe Foundation, an independent nonprofit, simply to secure Golden Globes tickets is an unfortunate distraction that inappropriately diverts resources from legitimate charitable causes. We remain troubled that the HFPA, an organization so widely criticized for ethical failures, non-inclusivity, racism, and misconduct involving talent, continues to find attorneys willing to push such illegitimate claims,” said the Penske spokesperson.
The lawsuit contends that the acquisition became a mechanism for Penske and Boehly to successfully “maintain monopolies” in three specific areas: Hollywood trade publications, secondary awards and For Your Consideration (FYC) advertising — the specialized promotion of entertainment and entertainers to members of awards voting bodies.
Using this monopoly, Penske is accused of turning the Golden Globes into a “pay-to-play racket.”
For instance the suit alleges that in 2024 Penske Media sold “Variety Golden Globes” dinner series offering access to Golden Globes voters at $70,000 a piece, as cited in media reports.
The company is further accused of charging “potential movie studios a $5,000-per-project ‘administration fee’ to have a project placed on the Golden Globes Screening Platform.” Those studios that submitted at least 14 titles, were “offered better display treatment on the portal.”
Penske Media also allegedly required FYC advertising purchases from the company’s trade publication for awards consideration, according to the suit, which claims that Penske Media, through its trade publications, owns 80% of FYC advertising worth upwards of $1 billion annually.
Last May, the HFPA board voted to pause the wind-down and dissolution process “to fulfill the organization’s duty to investigate the malfeasance and conflicts of interest” in connection with the sale, according to the lawsuit, which also states the California Attorney General has so far “declined to approve dissolution of the HFPA.”
“The Golden Globes transaction closed more than three years ago and received all required approvals—any assertion that it did not close, or remains subject to reversal, is once again unequivocally false. This latest act of duplicity is a new low, even for the HFPA,” said the Penske spokesperson.
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