HFPA members move to relaunch the organization in the midst of disputes

Members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s veteran board of directors are looking to restore the organization, two years after the Golden Globe Awards and other HFPA assets were acquired by Dick Clark Productions and the Eldridge Portfolio Company of Dick Clark and the investor Todd Boehly.

The move stems from a dispute between certain HFPA members and the new commissioners of the globes. (Disclosure: Dick Clark Productions belongs to PMC, parent company of Variety.)

The members of the Board of Directors of the HFPA met earlier this week for a vote to restore the organization. The HFPA, which was a non -profit organization, would have been dissolved following the acquisition of 2023 by Dick Clark Productions and Eldridge. Helen Hoehne, who was president of the HFPA at the time of the 2023 transaction, is now president of the Golden Globes LLC for profit. DCP has long been in interest and the right to produce the television of the Golden Globe Awards in an old decades agreement with the leaders of the HFPA of the time.

Over the past two years, members of the HFPA inheritance have accused the new owners of the renegation globes of promises made as part of the sales transaction. It is understood that some members believe that the commitments made as transaction points in the transaction, such as plane travel allowances and guaranteed tickets for the annual Kudocast, have not been filled.

Another commitment made in 2023 was a financial offer for members of a single redemption of $ 250,000, a salary of $ 75,000 for five years to compensate for their current service as electors for the organization of new globes. In February, the Golden Globes surprised HFPA members with a news that it would eliminate annual wages of $ 75,000 this year. The members were offered $ 102,500 in dismissal. It is understood that many members have taken place in mediation talks in recent weeks with the representatives of the for -profit globes compared to deterioration.

At the time, the decision was communicated to the members of the HFPA inheritance who opted for the five-year wage plan, a spokesperson for the Golden Globes described the change of policy to Variety As “a recognition that continuing to pay the members could add to a perception of the bias in the vote”. The spokesman also said that the globes “fully fulfilled his contractual obligations towards the voters by offering the starting indemnity”.

This decision by Globes leaders has more frustrated the members who had already expressed concerns about the aspects of the transaction at the California State Prosecutor’s Office, which has the surveillance of non -profit organizations and charitable activities. This office had a constant flow of questions on the transaction raised by members of the board of directors, according to several sources with knowledge of the situation.

The HFPA transaction in 2023 came in the controversy and criticism of the press association for its practices involving administration and judgment processes around annual prices. The group was also seriously examined for the lack of diversity among its members, as indicated in a presentation in 2021 by the Los Angeles Times. The benefits of the HFPA group included the decision of the long -standing television partner NBC to withdraw from the Golden Globe 2022 award ceremony. The ceremony returned to the waves in 2023 as part of a single agreement with NBC. In 2024, the ceremony moved to CBS and later that year, CBS renewed the agreement for five years.

In May 2023, Joseph Zimring, the state sub-procurer of the State, sent a letter to the lawyers for the law firm Morgan Lewis representing DCP and Eldridge which indicated the intention of the State to sign the agreement. According to a source, the constant flow of comments and questions of HFPA members stimulated the requests for documents and verifications which delayed months at the Prosecutor General’s office to give the final signature to the dissolution of the HFPA. In the midst of increasing tensions on canceled wages, the absence of a state panel was considered to be opening a door so that the members vote to restore the HFPA as an active organization.

“With regard to the benefice assets that you are looking for to transfer, we have examined the information you have provided, including the representation that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) expects that at least $ 44 million of $ 48 million that it will receive from the transaction will be transferred to the new Golden Globes foundation when it was dissolved. Zimring in Morgan Lewis.

Zimring wrote that the State would bless the agreement and the creation of a new non -profit organization of the Golden Globe Foundation to use the money held by the previous charitable trust of the HFPA as long as the standard conditions were met. HFPA trust chests were supplied for decades by license costs and other profits from the Golden Globes Awards. As Zimring stated in his letter, “the Hollywood Foreign Press Association holds assets subject to a charity trust insofar as Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s charitable trust is entitled to 5% of the net profits of the Golden Globe Awards.”

The specific complaints which have been addressed to state representatives are not clear. HFPA members have retained the lawyer Reynolds Cafferata to represent them when they seek to revisit and possibly disentangle the 2023 transaction with DCP and Eldridge. Cafferata did not return several requests for comments on Wednesday. A representative of the Office of the State Attorney General made no immediate comments on the issue.

The representatives of Eldridge, DCP and the Golden Globes refused to comment.

The extent of what the members of the HFPA hope to accomplish by reviving the organization is not clear.
The decision to do so with a vote exerted on June 30 sparked the resignation of at least two members of the board of directors who joined the body in 2021 because it was in shock from the scandals and the controversy which alienated the talents and the Hollywood studios. Dr. Joanna Massey submitted her resignation on Tuesday morning. Jeff Harris, a long -standing consultant from the industry, would have resigned the same day.

Massey, a veteran of the industry who held senior communication positions in CBS, UPN and Lionsgate, said in his letter that recent actions taken by the members of the board of directors were “a clear violation of the fiduciary obligation”, among other questions.

“We have approved and executed a binding legal agreement to sell the Golden Globes and dissolve the HFPA – an action, I believe that the supported members in order to preserve the Golden Globes and continue their admirable charity. This decision reflected a difficult but undeniable reality: the Hollywood community The notes / recordings and emails demonstrate, “wrote Massey, according to a copy of the note obtained by Variety.

“The current effort to reverse it – by questioning the agreement, by reinforcing the HFPA and by reinstating subscriptions – is, in my opinion, fundamentally defective and legally without merit. However, on the basis of what I had been on the board of directors to support a good faith examination of the facts. “According to my experience as an independent administrator on several public and private councils, the actions which are now taken by the board of directors represent a clear violation of the fiduciary obligation.”