Warner Bros. Discovery has filed a lawsuit against Amazon, accusing the tech giant of deliberately persuading its contracted employees to break their agreements, in a dispute centered on the recent hiring of HBO Max marketing executive Pia Barlow.
The lawsuit, filed July 21 in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleges intentional interference with contractual relations, breach of contract and unfair competition.
WBD claims that Amazon has been “hastily seeking to hack a number of contract employees” rather than building its own production and marketing workforce from scratch, and describes the company in its complaint as a “digital bull in a china shop.”
Barlow, former executive vice president of original marketing at HBO Max, was announced Friday by Amazon MGM Studios as its new head of series marketing, a role she will assume on August 3, reporting to global marketing head Sue Kroll.
According to the lawsuit, Barlow’s contract with WarnerMedia Services did not expire until October 31, 2027, and she had “freely and expressly agreed to remain employed” for its entire duration.
WBD’s lawyers argue that Amazon knowingly encouraged it to break that agreement anyway.
“While aware of Barlow’s ongoing contractual commitment to WMS, of which WBD is a beneficiary, Amazon has blatantly and deliberately induced Barlow to violate the employment agreement,” the document states, adding elsewhere that “Amazon must be stopped; it must not be allowed to profit from its illegal and tortious behavior.”
WBD is seeking damages as well as a preliminary and permanent injunction prohibiting Amazon from hiring any of its contract staff before their terms expire.
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit.
This isn’t the first such legal fight between a traditional media company and a tech platform over executive poaching: Disney sued YouTube last year after it hired former ESPN executive Justin Connolly, a dispute that was ultimately settled out of court, while Netflix spent five years fighting a similar case brought by 20th Century Fox in 2021.
The case is expected to test the applicability of fixed-term executive contracts in Hollywood at a time when streaming platforms are increasingly competing for the same pool of experienced entertainment marketing talent.
