"A Fight to the Death Litigation Struggle" (and also a SLAPP)

Bergstein v. Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, No B244896 (D2d8 May 8, 2015)

This is the apparent end of one of the many rounds of ugly litigation in various courts arising from a dispute between movie producer and Hollywood businessman David Bergstein and Aramid Entertainment, a film finance hedge fund. The blow-by-blow of what plaintiff calls “a fight to the death litigation struggle” is way too much to recount here. But the pertinent part of the story is that Susan Tregub, Bergstein’s long-time personal lawyer, with whom he had a falling out over fees, supposedly leaked Bergstein’s privileged and confidential information to Aramid and its lawyers. Bergstein won a $50 million breach of fiduciary duty verdict against Tregub. Then, in this case, he sued the lawyers representing Aramid on the litigation side—lawyers who were supposedly on the receiving end of the leaked info and used it in the various litigations. The trial court granted the lawyers’ anti-SLAPP motions.