PR Giant R&CPMK Accuses Former Executives & Rival 2 PM Sharp Of Theft, Breach Of Contract With Bicoastal Suits

“In Hollywood people lie to each other and cheat each other and then go and play tennis,” David Geffen once said, nailing it about the true business of show business. “But I don’t want to be a tennis player.”

R&CPMK are not playing tennis this Thanksgiving

The uber-PR firm launch a double assault on burgeoning rival 2 pm Sharp last night and today with bicoastal breach of contract lawsuits. Directly calling out ex-employees Jessica Sciacchitano Heather McDevitt, Michelle Schwartz and Jamie Arons as co-defendants, the Cindi Berger run R&CPMK details a late-night and internal campaign by top brass to hover up as much confidential information from the firm as possible for 2 pm Sharp’s launch last month.

According to the complaints filed in New York on November 26 and in LA today, that subterfuge involves the downloading of “thousands of R&CPMK files, including confidential, proprietary, and other sensitive business information.” Reading like a pitch for a corporate espionage pilot, the 24-page NYC filing by R&CPMK’s Seyfarth Shaw lawyers asserts it was all “to jumpstart 2PM Sharp’s new business by theft.”

They don’t say 2 pm Sharp poached clients like the Rolling Stones, but it is not that deep under the surface of these suits.

About as blue chip as you can get in the flackworld, R&CPMK brands itself as being a marketing engine for numerous Fortune 500 companies and representing hundreds and hundreds of “the most prominent and influential actors, musicians, producers, directors, content creators and athletes in the world.” All of which is to say, even though people change jibs, especially in the PR biz, all the time, getting your hands on their internal documents, as is alleged here, is a serious body blow to the firm – at least from R&CPMK’s POV.

“Due to Defendants’ conduct, individually and/or in concert with each other, R&CPMK stands to lose untold sums in revenues from the loss of client business, and significant additional amounts in out-of-pocket costs for, among other things, recruiting, hiring and onboarding replacement employees while also restoring morale and stability across existing employees,” the six-claim suit says (read it here).

The PR plaintiffs are seeking a wide swath of damages from 2 pm Sharp and the individual agents who supposedly jumped ship. R&CPMK also wants a series of injunctions against the newbie company and its ex-R&CPMK staffers. Among the injunctions, they are asking a court order that “enjoins the Former Employees, and all parties in active concert or participation with them, for a period of twelve months from the date of their last violation of the restrictive covenants in their Offer Letter Agreements and Code of Conduct, from soliciting R&CPMK’s clients and employees.” As well as an injunction that stops “2PM Sharp from aiding, abetting and/or causing the Former Employees to violate their post-employment obligations with Plaintiff.”

Contacted by Deadline about the lawsuits, R&CPMK’s Berger said: “We don’t comment on pending litigation.” The reaction at 2 pm was pretty much the same on this Thanksgiving Eve with a “no comment”

While fired ex-R&CPMK CEO Mark Owens and now 2 pm co-presidents Lindsay Galin and Jeff Raymond are not named as co-defendants, the trio are all over the complaints.

For instance, to give you a pre-Thanksgiving taste: “Upon information and belief, 2PM Sharp, under the direction of Owens, Galin and/or Raymond, and in concert with the Former Employees, orchestrated a mass departure of R&CPMK employees, which started while the Former Employees were still employed by R&CPMK. The Former Employees also conspired to improperly divert R&CPMK’s business to 2PM Sharp in violation of their contractual, fiduciary, and common law obligations to R&CPMK.”

The CEO of Rogers and Cowan for several years before the mega-merger with PMK in 2019, which was also owned by Interpublic Group, Owens, who is now the CEO of 2 pm Sharp, was bounced from R&CPMK in March. Galin and Raymond, who were co-presidents of talent at the Denzel Washington and Samsung (to name a few) representing R&CPMK, tendered their resignations on October 1. A couple of days later, with offices in NYC, LA and London and almost a dozen R&CPMK alum on board, 2 pm Sharp was born, as Deadline exclusively reported.

Alas, these multi-claim, multi-city lawsuits are probably not the Thanksgiving treat they envisioned then. Tennis, anyone?

Anthony D’Alessandro contributed to this report