HFPA and Dick Clark Productions gear up for Globes legal fight

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Forget the argument over whether Brad Pitt should have beaten George Clooney for best actor in Sunday’s Golden Globes. The real fight is between the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the owner of the event, and Dick Clark Productions (DCP), which produces it for television.

Next Tuesday, the two are scheduled to go to court over a 2010 television deal DCP signed with NBC to keep the show on the network through 2018. Soon after the agreement was reached, the HFPA filed a suit against DCP claiming it did not have the authority to sign a new accord with NBC without their approval. DCP has said the HFPA’s suit is without merit. The agreement, which was supposed to go into effect in 2012, has been in limbo.

The non-jury trial may have some big-name witnesses, including DCP founder Dick Clark, who long ago sold the company but certainly knows all the history of the relationship with the HFPA.

For a preview of the legal battle and what’s at stake, please see our story in Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times.

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-- Joe Flint