The legal battle between the San Francisco Bay Guardian and the SF Weekly is "a war straight out of the last century in its ruthlessness and its destructive potential," writes The Stranger's Eli Sanders in a 10,000-plus word cover story this week. The piece covers a lot of ground, but frames the battle as one between two alt-titans: Bay Guardian publisher Bruce Brugmann and Village Voice Media executive editor Michael Lacey. "These two men have hated each other for decades," Sanders writes, "but with increasing venom since 1995, when Lacey showed up in San Francisco in cowboy boots to announce that he and his partners had just purchased the tiny SF Weekly and planned to make a huge success of it."
A lawsuit filed by the Bank of Montreal on behalf of a group of institutional lenders seeks a temporary restraining order and injunction to stop the San Francisco Bay Guardian's efforts to collect millions of dollars from SF Weekly as part of 2008's predatory-pricing jury verdict. Last week, a Superior Court commissioner ruled that the Guardian is entitled to half of the Weekly's ad revenue; the banks are arguing that they have the first legal right to any money made by the Weekly. Meanwhile, The Stranger reports that it has court filings that show Weekly parent company Village Voice Media Holdings has been declared in default on an $80 million loan it has from the Bank of Montreal. This comes as the Weekly is asking for a separate restraining order to stop the Guardian from sending letters to Weekly advertisers; they say advertisers have been receiving conflicting notices from the Guardian and Bank of Montreal about who has first rights to the Weekly's revenue. In a court filing, the Weekly's lawyer says the confusion, if allowed to continue, "is likely to devastate SF Weekly's advertising business beyond repair."
A Superior Court commissioner has ruled the San Francisco Bay Guardian is entitled to half the advertising revenue of the SF Weekly to help collect $21 million in damages after a 2008 jury verdict of illegal price-cutting. Guardian attorney Jay Adkisson says the ad revenue would be "a very significant" amount -- potentially as much as $200,000 a month. Meanwhile, the Weekly's parent company, Village Voice Media Holdings (VVMH), will ask a state appeals court to overturn the ruling. VVMH executive associate editor Andy Van De Voorde says the Weekly will stay in business regardless. The Weekly is also currently in the midst of a separate appeal of the verdict. MORE from Westword.
"Both sides appear to agree in court that the case boils down to a fight over whether a pivotal section of California law should protect businesses or consumers," the East Bay Express' Robert Gammon writes in his in-depth update of the legal fight between the San Francisco Bay Guardian and SF Weekly. "If the Weekly wins, it could effectively eviscerate a section of California's Unfair Business Practices law, and thus make it nearly impossible for small, independently owned companies to fight off well-heeled competitors who try to drive them out of business. But if the Guardian wins, it could end up hurting consumers, because corporations may be fearful of offering steep discounts on their products because they will be sued for 'unfair business practices.'"
Two law firms have filed a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court alleging unfair business practices by the popular user-generated review site. The suit's plaintiff, a veterinary hospital, allegedly requested Yelp remove a negative review from the website. The suit says the company refused to do so, a move that was followed by repeated calls from Yelp sales reps demanding payments of roughly $300 per month in exchange for hiding or deleting the review. The East Bay Express explored similar charges in-depth last year. Yelp denied everything in the Express' coverage, and went as far as to attack the reporter for being inaccurate. Regarding the class-action suit, a Yelp representative calls the allegations "demonstrably false" and says the company will "dispute [the suit] aggressively."
In an appeal brief filed yesterday, SF Weekly is asking the California courts to overturn the San Francisco Bay Guardian's $21 million judgment in the 2008 predatory-pricing case, marking the final written document that will be entered into the record as part of the Weekly's appeal. The court is now expected to schedule oral arguments in the case, with a final decision coming "anywhere from five to eighteen months," according to the Weekly.
A San Francisco judge today heard arguments on whether SF Weekly should be forced to give half of its advertising revenue to the San Francisco Bay Guardian as part of the Guardian's continuing efforts to collect on the 2008 judgment in the predatory pricing suit between the two papers. The judge issued a "late tentative ruling" that suggested he will do just that, and he said he will give the final ruling soon. Meanwhile, the Guardian has asked a judge to add Village Voice Media, LLC and Village Voice Media Holdings, LLC to the companies that make up the Weekly's parent company in the judgment. (When the Guardian's suit was initially filed, the Weekly was still owned by pre-merger New Times.) A hearing on that matter has been set for March 12. The Weekly has said it is waiting to make any payments to the Guardian until it exhausts its appeals. MORE: Seattle Weekly wonders why The Stranger is sending a reporter to San Francisco to cover this, when Stranger editor Dan Savage's sex column runs in many papers that SF Weekly's parent company owns.
The San Francisco Bay Guardian last week filed its response to SF Weekly's appeal of the 2008 jury award in the Guardian's predatory-pricing lawsuit against the Weekly. The Weekly says it will file one more reply with the court within the next month or so, at which point the Court of Appeals will either set a date for oral arguments or issue a ruling based on what has been submitted by the two parties. In related news, the Guardian reports that a federal judge last week rejected the attempts of Weekly parent company Village Voice Media Holdings to avoid a state court proceeding where it may be added to the judgment against the Weekly.
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