Former owners of the Golden Globe awards have filed a $150 million federal lawsuit against media mogul Jay Penske and billionaire investor Todd Boehly.
The 113-page complaint filed in federal court marks a bitter escalation between the former leadership of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the new corporate custodians of the film awards. The plaintiffs allege that Penske and Boehly secretly orchestrated the 2022 industry boycott of the ceremony to force a discounted buyout of the organization in 2023.
Allegations of an engineered takeover
According to the lawsuit, the buyers planted insiders within the association to engineer the acquisition from the inside. The court filing singles out Gregory Goeckner, who served as the chief lawyer and chief operating officer of the press association, claiming he played a double game. The complaint states that Goeckner had sought to lead the association for years without success before secretly conspiring with the billionaire buyers to help liquidate the organization in exchange for a guaranteed chief executive officer position and a large salary at the new foundation.
The lawsuit also accuses Penske of leveraging his extensive media holdings to monopolize Hollywood advertising. Penske owns major entertainment trade publications including Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Deadline, alongside music event properties such as the American Music Awards and Billboard Music Awards. The plaintiffs claim he transformed the Golden Globes into a pay-to-play scheme, effectively requiring film studios to buy advertising across his publications to secure award nominations.
Furthermore, the complaint alleges that Penske and Boehly never intended to reform the awards out of noble motives. Instead, the plaintiffs claim the business partners deliberately used controlled magazines, specifically Variety and Deadline, to artificially inflate scandals around the press association, intimidate film studios, and depress television ratings until the aging leadership agreed to sell the brand for a fraction of its value.
Scandals and lavish perks
The legal battle follows years of controversy surrounding the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a non-profit organization of foreign journalists founded in 1943. For decades, the group controlled the Golden Globes, an annual awards broadcast that traditionally ranked second only to the Academy Awards in television ratings.
Despite its influence, the association faced severe criticism over its small membership of roughly 90 individuals worldwide and a reputation for internal corruption. Entertainment studios routinely courted members with lavish dinners and expensive cruises. In one widely reported scandal, Paramount Pictures flew more than 30 association members to Paris a year before nominating the series Emily in Paris, paying for luxury dining and stay at the five-star hotel The Peninsula Paris, where room rates started at $1,400 per night. Additional nominations were allegedly secured through VIP tours, expensive watches, exclusive alcohol, and press trips featuring royal treatment.
The lawsuit highlights systemic governance issues, noting that elderly members held veto power to block younger film critics from joining. Members who had not written articles in decades maintained their voting rights. The filing cites bodybuilder Alexander Nevsky, born Kuritsyn, who was treated as a leading Russian critic within the association and voted on nominees for years despite writing no notable film articles. Similarly, voter Nelli Holmes served for years as the primary voice of Russian film criticism in Los Angeles despite rarely publishing in major Russian media outlets.
The buyout and broken deals
Following public criticism and the 2022 ceremony boycott, Penske and Boehly finalized the purchase and officially liquidated the press association in the summer of 2023. The new owners promised to restore the reputation of the ceremony by expanding the voting body to 300 active entertainment journalists.
To facilitate the transition, the new management placed former association members on annual salaries of $75,000 and promised them VIP access tickets to all future Golden Globe ceremonies. However, when the new owners eliminated these cash payments and event privileges to strip away the legacy of the old organization, the former members took their grievances to federal court.
Counterclaims of stolen charity funds
Representatives for the restructured Golden Globes responded with an official court filing denying the allegations and accusing the former members of financial misconduct. The defense document alleges that former association members attempted to misappropriate more than $275,000 from the Golden Globe Foundation, a charitable entity established to assist orphans and provide grants to young filmmakers.
According to the defense filing, the ex-members attempted to divert those charitable funds to organize a private luxury party for themselves. The legal clash has exposed deep hostility between the former press association veterans and the media executives now overseeing the brand.
Industry analysts observe that if the federal court rules in favor of the former press association members, the media empire of Jay Penske and the broader $1 billion film awards and advertising market could face major antitrust restructuring. Within Hollywood, the lawsuit has been characterized as the final convulsion of an era of unearned privileges.
