Company poaching by no means goes over nicely with Disney and even much less so after they lose a key govt like Justin Connolly to the likes of the ever dominating YouTube. Which implies, after 20 years on the Walt Disney Firm in varied capacities, and a 2024 inked employment contract, presumed lifer Connolly is now discovering his sudden segue to the Google-owned social media and on-line video sharing platform a bit bumpier than anticipated.
Make that preliminary injunction and maybe everlasting injunction bumpy.
In a brief however sharp breach of contract swimsuit filed Wednesday in LA Superior Court docket, the Home of Mouse need the courts to cease their lately departed president of Disney Platform Distribution from having the ability to begin his newly created gig as YouTube’s international head of media and sports activities. Like by no means begin it.
Casting any sentimentality apart no matter Connolly’s beforehand lengthy loyal service, and recalling there’s a motive they name it present enterprise and never present friends, Disney are insisting that the contractual guidelines aren’t any recreation right here.
“In April 2025, Disney turned conscious of YouTube’s supply of employment to Connolly,” says the swimsuit towards the exec and the video platform filed by heavyweight employment legislation agency Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp on Might 21 in DTLA. On November 6 final yr, Connolly signed a brand new contract set to kick in on January 1, 2025 and run to December 31, 2027.
That every one modified final week.
“This information got here at a crucial time in Connolly’s tenure as President of Platform Distribution for Disney. Disney is within the midst of a number of necessary product launches and renegotiation of a few of its largest distribution offers, and Connolly has been the architect of Disney’s distribution technique and its principal negotiator,” Disney declares in the breach of contract, tortious interference and unfair competitors motion. “Critically, Connolly leads the Disney staff negotiating a license renewal with YouTube. Connolly has intimate data of Disney’s different distribution offers, the monetary particulars regarding Disney’s content material being licensed to YouTube, and Disney’s negotiation methods, each typically and particularly with respect to YouTube.”
Or to place it within the starkest of Magic Kingdom phrases: “It will be extraordinarily prejudicial to Disney for Connolly to breach the contract which he negotiated only a few months in the past and swap groups when Disney is engaged on a brand new licensing cope with the corporate that’s making an attempt to poach him.”
Disney/Getty Photos
Each Disney and YouTube declined to touch upon the lawsuit when contacted by Deadline right this moment.
On this C-suite recreation of govt chairs, Connolly exited his Disney publish after twenty years final Friday, simply as the corporate, because it makes clear in its BOC swimsuit, was nearing a consequential collection of negotiations. Connolly was to have performed a central position in talks with distribution companions for ESPN‘s forthcoming stand-alone streamer and likewise, satirically, carriage renewal talks with YouTube TV. The businesses’ present settlement expires later this yr.
Actually, the exec was certainly one of a number of senior leaders at ESPN and Disney (a roster that included CEO Bob Iger) to attend a media briefing final week about ESPN’s streaming technique. When he circulated a memo later that week asserting his departure, it reportedly took staff without warning given he had lately re-upped his contract.
Exposing that Connolly’s now previous position and duties at Disney was of a “particular, distinctive, uncommon, extraordinary, or mental character, which supplies them peculiar worth,” the corporate was taken the position of the injured social gathering right here not disingenuously at first look.
“As a direct and proximate results of Connolly’s breach of the Employment Settlement, Disney has been harmed and can proceed to be harmed,” the Bob Iger-run media colossus asserts of their submitting. “Connolly threatens to, and except restrained, will proceed to breach the Employment Settlement, to Disney and its associates’ nice and irreparable damage, for which damages wouldn’t afford ample reduction, in that they’d not utterly compensate for Disney’s accidents.”
