“Incredibly, on his personal tax returns, Mr. Moore reported total income of negative $350,862 in 2014 and total income of negative $221,025 in 2016, the most recent year made available to Kathleen.”
September 6, 2018
Verified Petition Of Kathleen R. Glynn In Support Of Application To Compel Respondent Michael Moore To Arbitrate
Kathleen Glynn's petition, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court the same day her former husband's new documentary premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, alleges Moore is stiffing her on profits from their movie projects.
“She was the driving force in the making of many of [his] films and other ventures in which Mr. Moore was the featured personality, dating back to their first big success, ‘Roger and Me’ (1989),” Glynn’s attorney Bonnie Rabin says in the new suit.
Glynn also produced the Academy Award-winning “Bowling for Columbine” about the Columbine High School massacre and “Fahrenheit 9/11” — “the highest-grossing documentary film of all time.”
The suit claims Moore has walked away from a binding arbitration that was required to “flesh out the terms of an important provision in their property settlement.”
Glynn’s petition seeks an order to “compel arbitration” and directing that “the parties’ written agreement, as part of the 2104 agreement settling their Michigan divorce action” to engage in binding arbitration and a “written agreement naming retired New York State Supreme Court Justice Saralee Evans as the substitute arbitrator”.
The agreement specified that the arbitration hearing would be conducted by Evans at her Manhattan law office beginning on February 15, 2018.
In Glynn's petition, Rabin nails Moore, asserting the “proceeding is brought because respondent, Michael F. Moore, realizing that he and his misconduct were exposed and looking for a “do-over”, has simply walked away from the ongoing arbitration process.”
THE SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT: QUID PRO QUO, OR QUID PRO NO?
On July 18, 2014, a year after Michael Moore filed for divorce from Kathleen Glynn, the two entered into a Confidential Settlement Agreement “resolving the marital issues between them, subject to outcome of binding arbitration on certain issues relating to the division of property.”
According to Glynn’s petition, the settlement agreement required Glynn to “surrender essentially all her very valuable economic rights in the creative work that both of the parties created and performed during their decades-long marriage and before” in exchange for a 4% share “to be paid quarterly” of Moore’s gross receipts attributable to Moore’s work over the five years following the 2014 divorce settlement agreement and the parties’ past creative works.
In their post-divorce settlement agreement, Moore and Glynn agreed that “the terms of the foregoing would be fleshed out in a supplemental agreement (the “Separate Contract”), whose terms would be decided by an arbitrator if the parties were unable to reach agreement on them quickly.”
As part of the overall settlement, Glynn surrendered her “50% titled interest in Dog Eat Dog Films, Inc.”, a Delaware corporation that served as the primary production company for the duo’s films and other ventures.
In addition, Glynn “agreed to resign and an officer and/or director of Dog Eat Dog and to waive any claim to spousal support from Michael.”
Glynn claims Moore’s trying to obtain all the benefits of their 2014 settlement in which she “signed over essentially all of her interest in the fruits of the parties’ joint efforts as film-makers … in exchange for a promise of future revenue-sharing by” Moore.
After he allegedly paid her just $541 “for the seven-month period from June 1, 2014 through December 31, 2014”, Glynn accuses Moore of providing “little or no documentation showing or even purporting to show the total gross receipts on which those payments were based”, implying that his gross receipts during that seven-month period “were just $13,525”.
The petition states “on his personal tax returns, Mr. Moore reported total income of negative $350,862 in 2014 and total income of negative $221,025 in 2016, the most recent year made available” to Glynn.
(A September 5, 2018 Hollywood Reporter feature on Moore and his new film, “Fahrenheit 11/9”, still describes him as “a self-made man whose wealth has been estimated at as much as $50 million”.)
Glynn accuses Moore of utilizing “stalling tactics” and “foot-dragging” to delay a resolution, claiming that he has “no financial incentive to complete the process speedily” and frequently took the position he was “too busy” to complete the process begun with a July 21, 2015 “First Arbitration Agreement”.
Alleging the delays pushed Glynn to “move the arbitration to a conclusion”, she engaged New York attorney Bonnie Rabin.
After additional back-and-forth with Moore, Glynn and her attorney approved the appointment of retired Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Saralee Evans as the new arbitrator.
They subsequently scheduled three days of arbitration proceedings, on February 15, 16 and 17, 2018. At the end of the third day (February 17, 2018), “the parties, counsel and Justice Evans discussed when they would resume, but Mr. Moore and his counsel stated that they would be unable to commit to a resumption date at that time, and that it could not be for several months (May or June 2018) due to work commitments” of Moore.
THE LETTERS
Coming Monday, September 10, the rest of the story, including exclusive court documents like this letter:
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