Part of Connery Suit Over Bond Movies Dismissed

A federal court judge in Los Angeles has dismissed actor Sean Connery’s allegations that the producers and distributor of the James Bond movies in which he starred had violated federal securities laws.

U.S. District Judge David S. Kenyon dismissed 12 counts of the civil lawsuit that Connery filed last June against Bond movie producer Albert R. Broccoli and two of his foreign production companies. Connery is seeking $225 million in damages.

The allegations of securities violations were a novel attempt by Connery to show that his contract guarantees of certain profits and box-office receipts for starring as secret agent 007 constituted a security. Connery’s lawyers argued that those guarantees constituted an investment by Connery in the films.

Had the judge allowed that issue to go to trial, the structure of Hollywood profit-participation agreements could have been thrown into turmoil.

In his written ruling issued Dec. 28 but largely unnoticed until Tuesday, Kenyon left standing Connery’s other allegations that he was defrauded and that his contract with Broccoli and the films’ distributor, Culver City-based MGM/UA Entertainment Co., was breached by his not receiving profits allegedly due him from five of the Bond films.

Broccoli’s London office issued a statement Tuesday stating that Kenyon’s dismissal “in effect ends the . . . litigation in district court brought by Mr. Connery against the producers.” But Connery’s lawyers indicated Tuesday that the matter has not yet been laid to rest. Larry Stein said of Kenyon’s ruling: “We have received the opinion and we are in the process of analyzing it.”

In his ruling, Kenyon, who once worked in the entertainment industry as an attorney, relied on a landmark 1946 case regarding the definition of a security under federal securities laws. In that case, Securities and Exchange Commission vs. W. J. Howey Co., the federal court required that, for an investment to qualify as a security, it must “involve an investment of money in a common enterprise with profits to come solely from the efforts of others.”

Connery had claimed that although he agreed to play James Bond in “From Russia With Love,” “Goldfinger,” “Thunderball,” “You Only Live Twice” and “Diamonds Are Forever,” the profits of the films were not dependent on him but rather on the efforts of the producer and distributor. In his opinion, Kenyon ruled that Connery’s performance as James Bond “is an effort that is as undeniably significant to the films’ success or failure as the production, distribution or marketing of the films.”