BakerHostetler Secures Win in Rare Grant of Summary Judgment for DIRECTV

Partners Jonathan Pressment and Christos Papapetrou led a team that included Associates Megan Corrigan and Tara Turner in representing DIRECTV in a case against Nexstar Media Group in the New York commercial division. DIRECTV sued Nexstar because it breached a retransmission licensing agreement when it continued to charge DIRECTV fees for an NBC-affiliated station after the station lost its network affiliation. During discovery, the Baker team also uncovered that Nexstar knew the station was losing the NBC affiliation before it negotiated the deal with DIRECTV. As a result, DIRECTV amended its complaint to add a claim for fraud against Nexstar.

The Baker team had previously prevailed on the breach of contract claim at summary judgment. But it has now secured a rare grant of summary judgment for DIRECTV on the fraud claim, with the New York appellate court unanimously ruling that Nexstar intentionally withheld critical information from DIRECTV during the parties' negotiations of the contract at issue that resulted in DIRECTV's payment of millions of dollars in additional fees to Nexstar. DIRECTV would not have paid the additional fees if Nexstar had disclosed the withheld information.

According to DIRECTV, Nexstar knew NBC was not going to renew the affiliate's NBC-affiliation well before it negotiated the retransmission licensing agreement at issue with DIRECTV. However, Nexstar did not disclose that information to DIRECTV. As a result, DIRECTV agreed to a provision that resulted in its payment of $10.5 million in retransmission consent fees for the channel. The appeals court ruled that Nexstar knew the NBC affiliate was losing its NBC affiliation at the time of the parties' negotiations and intentionally withheld that information from DIRECTV to secure the additional fees.