PEARLMAN, WILHELMINA
DISPUTE GROWS MORE LITIGIOUS

The man responsible for Justin Timberlake and Nick Carter, the subject of litigation in the past, has been countersued by the Wilhelmina Modeling Agency for $24.3 million in Florida Federal Court for breach of contract and fraud. The lawsuit alleges one of Pearlman’s Trans Continental Talent divisions, renamed the Wilhelmina Scouting Network under a now-broken agreement in March 2003, misrepresented the Wilhelmina trademark to thousands of young people.

A spokesman for Pearlman says the action was taken in reponse to a suit originally brought by Trans Continental against Wilhelmina for $23 million in damages to the company in August '03, accusing senior management of unethical acts, including breach of implied convenant of good faith and fair dealing.

Wilhelmina attorneys say business practices employed by Pearlman's firms led to current investigations against the fashion concern in New York and by the Florida attorney general., including asking prospective models and clients to pay large sums of money to have their photos placed on the agency's website.

Pearlman and Trans Continental also have a litigation pending against company gadfly William Rosenberger for running what they call a fraudulent, vindictive site called www.transconscam.com, which has been regularly bashing Pearlman and running what Trans Continental execs call "malicioius lies" about the case.

Pearlman believes the Wilhelmina case is without merit and is merely an attempt to divert attention from his previous legal action against the company after learning of the agency's illegal price-fixing and collusion in an Aug. 2003 Wall Street Journal article. He goes on to insist that he never signed any personal agreements with Wilhelmina, and is asking for both the New York and Florida suits to be dismissed without merit.

The original agreement gave Trans Continental the right to use the Wilhelmina name for 10 years for $25 million, paying the agency a minimum of $50k a week for 50 weeks for the length of the pact. Wilhelmina claims that Pearlman missed two payments in July 2003, and are asking for the full amount owed in the deal.

Ya gotta hand it to Big Poppa. He doesn't think small. A trial date has not yet been set.