The Weinstein Company Seeks to Toss Class-Action Suit, Insists Harvey Was ‘Acting Alone’
The Weinstein Company filed a motion on Tuesday seeking to dismiss a class-action lawsuit, arguing that ousted CEO and co-founder Harvey Weinstein was “acting alone” amid accusations of sexual assault and harassment claimed by the six female plaintiffs.
“Virtually all of the alleged conduct about which plaintiffs complain in the complaint was committed by H. Weinstein, acting alone, between ten and twenty-five years ago,” the company said in a legal memorandum obtained by The Wrap.
In addition, the company argued that none of the six plaintiffs “have pleaded facts demonstrating any concrete, non-speculative injury to their business prospects, nor have they alleged how TWC’s alleged conduct was the direct cause of such injury.”
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The suit, filed last December in New York’s U.S. District Court, includes six women who said they faced “credible and objective threat of being blacklisted by Weinstein and major film producers such as Miramax and TWC if they refused Weinstein’s unwanted sexual advances or complained about his behavior.”
Past and present TWC board members such as Dirk Ziff and Paul Tudor Jones were also named as defendants — an escalation from an earlier suit filed by the same firm on Nov. 15 that also alleged assault, infliction of emotional distress and violation of a federal RICO statute designed to take down criminal enterprises.
In its filing on Tuesday, TWC noted that all but two of the plaintiffs’ claims covered accusations that predated the formation of The Weinstein Company in 2005. The memo further argues that no other employee of the company was made aware of those plaintiffs’ claims prior to the suit.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.
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