Warner Seeks to Ban Sony From Hiring Guber, Peters

In a legal move that casts new doubt over Sony Corp.’s staffing plans for Columbia Pictures, Warner Bros. on Thursday filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent the Japanese electronics giant from hiring producers Peter Guber and Jon Peters.

If a Los Angeles Superior Court judge grants the motion at a hearing set for Nov. 2, Sony could be forced to look elsewhere for top talent to run Columbia, which the Japanese firm is now buying through a $3.4-billion tender offer that expires Oct. 31. Sony is also acquiring Guber-Peters Entertainment Co. for $17.50 a share, or about $200 million.

A Warner attorney said the studio is seeking a preliminary injunction to speed up resolution of the Warner-Sony dispute. Last week, the two companies filed suit against each other in the same court, but that litigation could drag on for years while Sony pursues its plans for Columbia, said Warner attorney Stuart Robinowitz.

“We want to make sure they continue rendering services for us on all projects in the works,” Robinowitz said. “We don’t want to wait a year or two. We also feel we have a very strong case.”

But an attorney for Guber-Peters dismissed Warner’s motion as relying on speculation. “I don’t think it’s real,” attorney Terry Christensen said. “It’s a further attempt to hammer Sony.” Warner, he added, filed the motion “for publicity and bargaining purposes.”

A key issue in the Sony-Warner litigation is whether Warner executives ever gave Guber and Peters oral assurances that they could break their five-year exclusive production deal with Warner to pursue executive posts at other studios. Christensen said Warner President Terry Semel provided such an assurance, while Warner calls the alleged oral agreement “a transparent fairy tale.”

In a declaration filed in court and signed by Semel, the Warner president said he first learned about Sony’s advances to the producers at a Sept. 25 meeting with Guber, about one week after the Japanese firm first approached the pair. “Guber told me that the package of financial incentives offered by Sony would allow him and Mr. Peters to make more money than anyone in the history of the motion picture industry,” Semel said.

At that meeting, Guber asked for a written release from their five-year agreement with Warner. “I told him I could not sign the release,” Semel said. Then he called Warner Bros. Chairman Robert A. Daly and they arranged a conference call with Steven J. Ross, co-chief executive of parent Time Warner Inc.

“We all expressed shock that Guber and Peters had secretly made a deal with Sony,” Semel said. “When I asked Mr. Guber why he had not discussed this matter in advance with me, he told me that he had chosen not to inform Warner earlier . . . because he was concerned that Mr. Ross would call Mr. Akio Morita, Sony’s chairman, and tell him that Warner would not surrender its rights under the 1989 agreement.”

According to Christensen, however, Guber’s initial meeting with Semel--a close friend--ended with hugs and congratulations. It was Ross who put up a roadblock to letting Guber and Peters out of their deal, according to industry sources and Christensen.

The following day, Peters made a personal plea to Ross to let the pair out of their contract, according to a declaration made by Ross. “I explained that we could not release them in view of their great importance to the company,” Ross said.