A private arbitrator has ordered Viacom, former owner of Rock Band developer Harmonix, to pay the studio’s former shareholders $383 million over a failure to pay performance-based bonuses.
This decision has come in addition to a $150-million bonus payment already made by the company, bringing the total to $167 million short of the shareholders’ demand of $700 million in a lawsuit from last year. The suit was countered by Viacom earlier this year with a $131 million suit for “contractual overpayment,” but that triggered a mandatory arbitration clause included in the original contract.
Viacom has informed the masses that it intends to fight the arbitrator’s decision, having filed a suit in the Delaware Court of Chancery seeking to vacate it on the grounds that certain evidence and arguments were “improperly excluded.”
All of this started prior the company’s buyout of Harmonix late last year to a New York private investment firm for a total of $50, which also gave the owner of MTV Networks and Paramount Pictures a $50-million tax benefit on the loss. Viacom had purchased the Boston-based studio back in 2006 for a total of $175 million.
[LA Times]
