One week ago, direct broadcast satellite service provider Dish asked a D.C. federal district court to impose monetary sanctions on Soohyung Kim and his SGCI Holdings III LLC, along with their counsel, for bringing the company in to a $136 million discrimination lawsuit against the FCC.
Kim and his attorneys have responded to the filing, in which Elyse Echtman at Steptoe LLP calls Kim’s lawsuit “nothing more than an expensive temper tantrum thrown by an entitled entrepreneur who is irate over the fact that the FCC did not give him exactly what he wanted exactly when he wanted it.”
Kim and Standard General on April 24 filed a $136 million lawsuit in the D.C. federal district court, a move that came after the Commission’s Media Bureau, led by Holly Saurer, sent Standard General’s proposed merger acquisition with TEGNA to an Administrative Law Judge. Rather than have the ALJ, Jane Hinckley Halprin, adjudicate for what many expected would be more than a year, TEGNA and Kim’s group moved ahead with a deal unwind.
Then came SCGI Holdings III LLC v FCC, in which Dish and Ergen were called as non-government defendants along with Allen Media Group, the television industry entity led by Byron Allen; Goodfriend Group Inc. and its David Goodfriend; NewsGuild-CWA; NABET-CWA; United Church of Christ; and Common Cause.
Why were those non-government entities included in Soo’s lawsuit? Each were key deal detractors who spoke out against the transaction in front of the Commission.
On September 23, Dish and Ergen struck back by arguing that all claims against them should be dismissed.
Tyler Green and his legal team at Salt Lake City-based Consovoy McCarthy PLLC went to work on behalf of Soo. In a 45-page response filed with the D.C. federal district court, he contents that Dish and head Charlie Ergen‘s “Rule 11” motion should be denied with prejudice, and that Soo Kim and his side be awarded with expenses occurred in opposing Dish’s motion.
As Green and Soo Kim see it, “The timing and posture of Dish’s motion show its purpose is either to intimidate Plaintiffs and their counsel to dismiss claims against Dish and Mr. Ergen at the infancy of this case or to increase the chances that the court does so.”
And, they add, Dish’s motion itself violates “Rule 11” and thus warrants a sanction of costs and fees.
Of course, it is ultimately up to the court to decide if Dish should continue to be involved as a non-government defendant solely based on its statements made to the FCC against the TEGNA tie-up.
