Gencon Sued by LucasFilm (over Star Wars Celebration Make-a-Wish auction)

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

EXPLATIVE!!!

Sotto Voce: Greedy LucasFilm

...this doesn't really sound like a case of 'greed' to me.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

EXPLATIVE!!!

Sotto Voce: Greedy LucasFilm

 

[Kahuna Burger]

EXPLATIVE!!!

Sotto Voce: Greedy LucasFilm

Why greedy? If you ask for a donation to auction for charity, you by golly better give the proceeds to charity, and if someone rich enough to sue you to give the proceeds back to them instead is the one who was misled, that just means you'll actually get what you deserve.

(I also tend to think lucasfilm has the PR smarts to to give any money they get from the suit right to Make a Wish.)

 

[Thunderfoot]

The 150,000 for the auction is a lock in court if it goes to trial - the 500,000 & the 2 additional 150,00 charges are not so much, however GenCon LLC will probably end up having to pay interest and court cost regardless of the outcome and in CA that could be a cool 1,000,000 there.

This could conceivably be a multi million dollar lawsuit. I have a feeling that LFL is trying to settle this out of court which is the reason for the otherwise exorbitant amounts fir the non-auction levees. If GenCon can prove payment to MaW Found, then this suit loses most of its teeth. Will be interesting to see how this pans out.

 

[heirodule]

So nobody has seen any gencon or adkinson response to this I assume?

I guess we don't know what their side is on this. Its amazing to think that they wouldn't do what they were obligated to do contractually, without a any reason.

Maybe the auction house Gencon hired did something bad/had difficulty

Maybe theres a dispute about the accounting of the profit that would go to make-a-wish.

 

[Emirikol]

I've heard of groups ripping off Lucas before but a charity? That was a bad choice (as I say to my children).

jh

 

[Warehouse23]

GenCon has definitely earned a Dark Side Point for this.

That being said, I wouldn't settle out of court. I can see Lucas declaring, "I am altering the settlement. Pray I don't alter it any further."

 

[frankthedm]

So nobody has seen any gencon or adkinson response to this I assume?

I guess we don't know what their side is on this. Its amazing to think that they wouldn't do what they were obligated to do contractually, without a any reason.

10 to 1 there was 'A' reason. Much as hollywood uses some very creative accounting, there may have been issues in the contract that allowed for Gencon to count expenses and losses against what was being given to Lucas / charity. Thus “Large sum” Gross proceeds could have been made on the auction, but itemized costs, room rental, catering costs, labor, etc...etc... were all applied to the “Large sum”, leave no Net proceeds at all.

 

[Asmor]

Apparently I'm the only one that took issue with GenCon being called a "Star Wars" convention.

Not that I particularly care... actually, if this makes the press, it's probably better that Joe Schmo associates it with Star Wars than with gaming... but I digress.

Also, I didn't RTFA, but is this a fact that they shorted the foundation, or is it alleged? It seems like a lot of people are jumping the gun here on condemning GenCon.

 

[frankthedm]

Also, I didn't RTFA, but is this a fact that they shorted the foundation, or is it alleged? It seems like a lot of people are jumping the gun here on condemning GenCon.

Money came into Gencon's hands for a charity event, but did not reach the charity. Since a lawsuit was filed, that tells me it goes beyond a matter of a simple bookkeeping error.

http://reporter.blogs.com/thresq/files/LucasVGenCon.pdf