Amazon Hit With Poaching Lawsuit By WBD Over Hire Of Pia Barlow

Warner Bros. Discovery is waging legal war against Amazon, accusing the tech giant of “hurriedly seeking to pirate away a number of contracted employees” from multiple divisions.

The impetus for the complaint, filed July 21 in California Superior Court, is the hire by Amazon MGM Studios of Pia Barlow, EVP Originals Marketing for HBO Max, as VP and Head of Series Marketing. The appointment was announced by Amazon earlier today, three days after the lawsuit had been filed with Barlow’s case at the heart of it.

The lawsuit, which alleges intentional interference with contractual relations, breach of contract and unfair competition, is likely to reignite the debate over the enforceability of term employment agreements under California Labor Law and the practice of tech companies — which famously don’t do contracts — poaching executives from traditional media companies where they are under contract.

Netflix in 2021 lost a five-year legal battle with 20th Century Fox (now part of Disney), which accused the streamer of poaching two TV studio executives. YouTube recently settled a lawsuit filed by Disney over the hiring of former top ESPN executive Justin Connolly.

“In blatant disregard of established California law, Amazon has gone rogue by attempting to induce Plaintiffs’ employees with term employment agreements to breach those agreements with impunity, backed up with the ready assurance that Amazon will defend and indemnify them should they be held to account for their blatantly unlawful acts,” WBD wrote in their complaint. “There is perhaps no better example of Amazon’s lawless employee shopping spree than WarnerMedia Services employee Pia Barlow, a senior WMS marketing employee whose term employment contract was not set to expire until October 31, 2027.”

“Though it was aware of Barlow’s ongoing contractual commitment to WMS, of which WBD is a beneficiary, Amazon has brazenly and deliberately induced Barlow to breach the employment agreement by packing up and decamping to Amazon more than 16 months before its expiration,” the suit continued.

WBD sent a warning shot before filing the complaint, noting that “upon becoming aware of Barlow’s intending to breach her Employment Agreement and accept employment with Amazon,” the tech giant “was expressly notified by WBD in writing of the existence and relevant terms of [Barlow’s] Employment Agreement.”

The document goes on to describe another recent poaching attempt.

“Just a few weeks before Amazon’s interference with Barlow’s term employment contract with WMS, Amazon similarly endeavored to tortiously induce another WBD employee to breach their term employment agreement, which was not set to expire until December 2027,” the suit said. “Fortunately, in that instance, Amazon ultimately was unsuccessful in its efforts to raid WBD’s workforce as to that particular executive.”

No name has been provided, but this is believed to be a reference to one of HBO’s top programming executives, Francesca Orsi, who was reportedly courted for the Head of Drama and Comedy job at Amazon MGM Studios. (The position was ultimately split into three.)

While WBD has been in limbo for almost a year now, being the subject of a spinoff plan followed by a thwarted acquisition by Netflix and a pending one by Paramount, Barlow is the first known senior Warner Bros. executive to defect for another company. In addition to stock options that cannot be cashed in before the transaction is completed, WBD’s strict employment contracts are also said to be a deterrent.

“Amazon must be stopped,” WBD said in the suit, which plays on the old vs. new media “barbarians at the gate” narrative while throwing some arrows at the tech giant, which originated as an online book seller out of founder Jeff Bezos’s garage, calling it “the digital bull in a china shop.”

“The one-time bookseller turned purveyor of (practically) everything under the sun, including, in roughly the last decade, original entertainment content, did not start out as a studio or production company,” the filing said. “And rather than build its entertainment-production workforce from the ground up, Amazon has chosen to ride on the coattails of other well-established Hollywood mainstays such as Plaintiffs by inducing contracted employees to breach their employment agreements.”

The suit seeks preliminary and permanent induction and damages.

A rep for Amazon MGM Studios had no comment.

You can read the lawsuit here: