The lawsuit, filed in April 2006 in the Los Angeles Superior Court by BlueMoon Entertainment, claimed that Bodog and its CEO Calvin Ayre were in breach of contract, breach of confidence and misappropriation of ideas in relation to Ayre\’s self-produced reality television series, which aired on Fox Sports Net.
“This is just yet another case of a producer coming out of the woodworks to file a baseless lawsuit against a successful entertainment project because the producer somehow, somewhere met someone involved with the project,” said Bodog attorney James Nguyen. “In reality, BlueMoon Entertainment raced to the courthouse to file this lawsuit before the Calvin Ayre Wild Card Poker series was aired on Fox Sports Network, and therefore without even knowing what the show looked like. Before actually seeing the Bodog program, how could BlueMoon Entertainment reasonably believe that its supposed show proposal was strikingly similar to Calvin Ayre Wild Card Poker? The answer is BlueMoon could not have, and my client believes that shows the lawsuit was baseless to begin with.”
According to a Bodog statement, the fact that BlueMoon dismissed the lawsuit so quickly, confirmed the weakness in the case. But Bluemoon Entertainment attorney David Beitchman said the case was not dismissed on the merits.
Beitchman reiterated that Bluemoon provided Bodog with complete project disclosure, and submitted numerous proposal and development materials, including project overviews and synopsis, episodic outlines, distribution and marketing breakdowns, and production schedules with full budget analysis.
“Bluemoon elected to dismiss this case because Bodog and Mr. Ayre have shielded themselves from U.S. civil as well as criminal law,” said Bluemoon spokesperson Grace Williams. “Bodog\’s lawyers can spin the dismissal any way they choose in the press, but their PR efforts won\’t change the fact that Bodog deliberately maintains all of its assets outside the reach of U.S. civil court judgments. Even serving routine court papers, let alone trying to collect a judgment, was a challenge.”
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