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Alliance vs. Diamond Discovery Dates are Set

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There’s a lot of side quests when it comes to Diamond’s Chapter 11/Chapter 7 drama. There’s numerous lawsuits that have spun out of it, dozens depending on how you want to count them. One of the more dramatic ones is Alliance Entertainment‘s lawsuit against Diamond and its associates.

In April 2025, Alliance Entertainment submitted a complaint against Diamond accusing Diamond of “fraud” and “deception” as far as their relationship with Wizards of the Coast, the company behind Magic: The Gathering. Wizards did not continue its distribution agreement past December 2024 and didn’t inform Alliance. Diamond and its representatives actually attempted to obfuscate it and keep it from Alliance during the deal.

That lawsuit has been slow, but ongoing, and now we have the next steps as it looks like there might be an agreement when it comes to discovery.

Discovery is the process where documents need to be handed over to lawyers allowing them to gather evidence. Emails, documents, internal chats, those are all examples of discovery and it can involve millions of documents depending on the lawsuit.

The following is what’s proposed and differs slightly from the original proposed dates.

The Parties shall make their initial disclosures pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a)(1) on or before March 10, 2026.

(a) Discovery Requests. The Parties shall serve all document requests, interrogatories, and requests for admissions on or before March 16, 2026.
(b) Substantial Document Production Completion Date. Document production shall be substantially completed by August 31, 2026.
(c) Fact Discovery Cut Off. Except for Rule 26(a)(1) disclosures, all fact discovery
in this case will be completed on or before October 31, 2026. Fact depositions may be taken at any time prior to the expiration of the fact discovery deadline.
(d) Privilege Logs. Privilege logs shall be produced in accordance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure so as to be completed within fourteen (14) business days of the related document production. Privileged communications occurring after April 29, 2025, need not be included on a privilege log.
(e) Experts. The Parties do not presently intend to call any expert witnesses. To the extent that changes, the Parties will meet and confer to discuss deadlines pertaining to expert discovery.

Also mentioned:

3. The Parties will submit a confidentiality order and ESI Protocol to the Court for approval on or before April 3, 2026.
4. Motions to join other parties, and to amend or supplement the pleadings, shall be filed on or before June 1, 2026.
5. Dispositive motions by any party are to be filed by November 30, 2026. Answer briefs in opposition thereto are to be filed by December 30, 2026. Reply briefs are to be filed by January 13, 2027.
6. A hearing on dispositive motions shall be set for February 17, 2027 at 10:00 AM in Courtroom 9-D, Baltimore – Judge Rice.
7. Parties must file pre-trial statements in conformity with Local Bankruptcy Rule 7016-1(b) within thirty (30) days of the Court’s ruling on dispositive motions.
8. Trial time estimate four (4) days.

This is a pretty big step for this case to proceed and looks like we’ll get an actual trial some time in 2027.

Check out the full documents below:

Publishers Motion to Dismiss Diamond’s Adversary Complaints

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Diamond Comic Distributors

One of the major outstanding issues with Diamond‘s bankruptcy is the status of consignment inventory. Diamond currently has stock that was provided to it by publishers on a consignment basis. That stock is currently physically held by Sparkle Pop which purchased some of Diamond’s assets, including taking over the warehouse where these are stored, though they don’t have a right to sell it (which they did and there was drama around that).

Diamond wants to sell the consigned goods to help pay back its creditors. Publishers obviously want their stock back. A judge put a stay on the decision which has been playing out for months. Diamond then went a submitted adversary proceedings against publishers, over 30 of them. In short, instead of this decision being handled at a macro level, the judge said Diamond could sue each publisher individually to figure out the product status.

Now, Diamond is in chapter 7 and due to key dates having passed, the Consignment Group, which is made up of multiple publishers, has submitted motions in each of those adversary proceedings to dismiss the complaints. Oddly a filing had the Trustee of the chapter 7 process selling the consigned goods to Sparkle Pop so it’s unclear how this motion and that clashes.

Filings by Massive Publishing, Oni Press, Panini, Alien Books, Titan Comics, Vault Storyworks, Dynamic Forces, Aspen, Black Mask Studio, Dark Horse, DSTLRY, Heavy Metal, and Magnetic Press were all revealed today were submitted to the court to “Dismiss Adversary Proceeding Complaint(s).”

The motion goes right into it stating that Diamond has not submitted facts to back up their complaint and discovery has not revealed evidence, and that the court can dismiss it over this.

The Complaint(s) in this case is devoid of any meritorious allegations that might possibly support Plaintiff’s claims; thus, this Complaint must be dismissed.

The filing then goes on about the agreement between Diamond and the publishers saying it’s “executory in nature” and Diamond’s obligations were to ship goods, properly store the goods, and pay the publishers when the goods ae sold.

On December 19, 2025, Diamond’s Chapter 11 was switched to Chapter 7 and with that, they had until February 17, 2026 to assume or reject an executory contract. The deadline to assume or reject their contracts has been an issue throughout the Chapter 11/Chapter 7 case with the deadline to do so pushed out over and over. The latest request to extend the deadline was denied in early February.

February 17 has come and gone and since the deadline wasn’t extended again and the agreements weren’t assumed, then they can be deemed rejected.

Because the agreement has been rejected, they are now terminated the Consignment Group argues and the agreement is now in breach and the next steps due to that breach need to be determined.

The Consignment Group feels the agreement has answers to that and as per a Supreme Court case, the publishers would then retain the rights it has received under the agreement. The motion lists out the various ways the agreement can be terminated (something we have mentioned before) and then goes on to state since the Consignors are owed money still and no proof of claim has been filed, the agreement has been terminated by its own terms.

The agreement lays out what happens next:

  1. Effect of Termination
    d. Except as provided herein, the termination of this Agreement shall not relieve or release any party from any of its obligations existing prior to such termination. Upon termination of this Agreement, title to all material containing the
    Trademarks, or Seller’s copyrights, service marks, or similar rights shall be deemed to have automatically vested in Seller. Unless otherwise agreed to by Seller, Buyer shall immediately deliver such material to Seller, at Seller’s cost. Buyer, at Seller’s option, may destroy such material at Seller’s cost, and upon such destruction furnish Seller a certificate of destruction satisfactory to Seller and signed by an officer of Buyer.

In short, the Buyer (aka Diamond) needs to return the goods to the Seller (aka publishers) with the Sellers paying for shipping. The Buyer can also destroy the material if the Seller wants, with the Seller paying for that.

The Consignment Group’s motion then concludes that due to all of that, the consigned goods are now clearly owned by the publishers and the Adversary Complaints should be dismissed.

This is a pretty big motion that might be the first real step to settle the outstanding question as to who owns the consigned goods. With the lapse of the date concerning the acceptance or rejection of existing agreements, the publisher’s case gets stronger.

We’ll be watching this closely and report when the court makes a decision regarding this key issue.

Alliance vs. Diamond Gets Discovery Dates

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There’s a lot of side quests when it comes to Diamond’s Chapter 11/Chapter 7 drama. There’s numerous lawsuits that have spun out of it, dozens depending on how you want to count them. One of the more dramatic ones is Alliance Entertainment‘s lawsuit against Diamond and its associates.

In April 2025, Alliance Entertainment submitted a complaint against Diamond accusing Diamond of “fraud” and “deception” as far as their relationship with Wizards of the Coast, the company behind Magic: The Gathering. Wizards did not continue its distribution agreement past December 2024 and didn’t inform Alliance. Diamond and its representatives actually attempted to obfuscate it and keep it from Alliance during the deal.

That lawsuit has been slow, but ongoing, and now we have the next steps as it looks like there might be an agreement when it comes to discovery.

Discovery is the process where documents need to be handed over to lawyers allowing them to gather evidence. Emails, documents, internal chats, those are all examples of discovery and it can involve millions of documents depending on the lawsuit.

The following is what’s proposed:

(a) Discovery Requests. The Parties shall serve all document requests, interrogatories, and requests for admissions on or before March 16, 2026.
(b) Substantial Document Production Completion Date. Document production shall be substantially completed by June 8, 2026.
(c) Fact Discovery Cut Off. The Parties have agreed that, except for Rule 26(a)(1) disclosures, all fact discovery in this case will be completed on or before July 20, 2026. The Parties have agreed that they may take fact depositions at any time prior to the expiration of the fact discovery deadline.
(d) Privilege Logs. Privilege logs shall be produced in accordance with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure so as to be completed within fourteen (14) business days of the related document production. Privileged communications occurring after April 29, 2025, need not be included on a privilege log.
(e) Experts. The Parties do not presently intend to call any expert witnesses. To the extent that changes, the Parties will meet and confer to discuss deadlines pertaining to expert discovery.

Also mentioned:

  1. Protective Orders and ESI Protocol. The Parties will submit a confidentiality order and ESI Protocol to the Court for approval on or before April 3, 2026.
  2. Case Dispositive Motions. Any dispositive motions must be filed thirty (30) days after the completion of fact discovery. Answering briefs in opposition thereto are due thirty (30) days later, with reply briefs to be filed fourteen (14) days after the filing of any answering briefs.
  3. Joinder of Other Parties and Amendment of Pleadings. All motions to join other parties, and to amend or supplement the pleadings, shall be filed on or before April 24, 2026.
  4. Pretrial Order. If this adversary proceeding cannot be resolved on dispositive motions, the Parties have agreed to file a Joint Pretrial Report within thirty (30) days of the Court’s ruling on dispositive motions.
  5. Length of Trial. The Parties estimate that the time required to try this adversary proceeding will be four (4) days.

This is a pretty big step for this case to proceed and looks like we’ll get more about the middle of the year when it comes to a resolution and decision, if not before.

Check out the full documents below:

Cadence Comic Art Lawsuit Settlement Revealed

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Cadence Comic Art

In August 2025, Becky Cloonan, David Marquez, Wesley Craig, Paolo Villanelli, Leila Leiz, Alessandro Cappuccio, Danai Christina Kilaidoni, Elena Casagrande, Valerio Schiti, Mahmud Anjum Asrar, Joelle Jones, Yildiray Cinar, Rafael Albuquerque, Tyler Crook, Jenny Frison, Pia Guerra, and Jill Thompson filed a lawsuit against Cadence Comic Art and Paolo Belfiore over what the claim of “egregious misconduct.” In early December, attorneys asked for an adjournment until mid-January 2026 as the parties were meeting in an attempt to settle the lawsuit without the need for a trial and in January an agreement was reached. As long as the agreement was followed, no trial would follow.

Now, in a new court filing, we know the details of that settlement:

  • Defendants agree to provide the sum of Five Hundred Fifty Thousand U.S. Dollars ($550,000.00).
  • Payment of the Settlement Consideration shall be in equal monthly payments of Three Hundred and Fifty U.S. Dollars ($350.00) due on the first of each calendar month, in perpetuity, until the entire Settlement Consideration is paid in full. Larger payments may be made, and any amount shall be credited accordingly.
  • As long as the payments are made, there’ll be no interest but if a payment is failed to be made, the Settlement Consideration shall accrue an interest rate of 9% per annum, calculated retroactively from January 1, 2024 until the outstanding amount is paid in full.
  • There’ll be no further expenses for the Defendents as long as they make timely payments.
  • There are no admissions of any kind by the Plaintiffs or Defendents.
  • There’s a Non-Disparagement clause.

You can check out all of the official documents with more details of the settlement below:

Drama over the future of Angoulême with a Lawsuit launched on the first day of Grand Off

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Angouleme

Today is the first day of Grand Off, the festival launched to replace this year’s Angoulême. After threats of boycotts, a pulling of funding, and general distrust of the organizers, the 2026 edition of the Angoulême Comics Festival was cancelled in early December 2025. In its place is a different festival, Grand Off, and a proposed launch of a comic festival in 2027. But with all of that, more drama with a lawsuit.

The Angoulême International Comics Festival (FIBD), along 9e Art+ festival manager Franck Bondoux have announced they are suing the Development of Comics in Angoulême (ADBDA). The ADBDA was tasked with replacing Angoulême in 2027. FIBD and Bondoux accuse ADBDA of “unfair competition and parasitic behavior.”

In January 2026, ADBDA sent out a request to find an organizer for a new festival. It would push to the side FIBD and 9e Art+ and move on from recent scandal. Bondoux in statements is saying this new festival is building off of the work he has done building up the reputation of Angoulême.

The lawsuit requests that the proposed convention be cancelled and “prohibit any act that would aim to organize a comic book festival in Angoulême in the first quarter of each year.”

FIBD wrote on Facebook:

The specifications drawn up by the ADBDA thus constitute a clear and deliberate appropriation of the Festival, while claiming to change its name. This crude subterfuge, a simple semantic artifice, cannot mask the reality: it is clearly an attempt to reproduce the FIBD as it has been built, structured, and developed for more than fifty years, and particularly during the most recent editions.

Even more seriously, the ADBDA claims in the same document full ownership of this future event, thus confirming an attempt at dispossession, a pure and simple spoliation of the FIBD Association, its history, its work, its volunteers, and its rights.

Deliberately marginalized and then excluded by the public authorities from this entire process, excluded from any consultation, deprived of its founding event, the FIBD Association, the target of extremely violent remarks from certain elected officials whose sole aim was to delegitimize it, is now forced, reluctantly but resolutely, to take legal action and seek the protection of the courts.

Faced with this unjustifiable appropriation, legal action is now the only possible way to uphold the law and reaffirm the fundamental principles that govern associative and cultural life. Consequently, the FIBD Association, in conjunction with 9ème art+, has initially decided to take lega

Breaking: Cadence Comic Art Lawsuit Has Been Settled and asks for Dismissal

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Cadence Comic Art

In August 2025, Becky Cloonan, David Marquez, Wesley Craig, Paolo Villanelli, Leila Leiz, Alessandro Cappuccio, Danai Christina Kilaidoni, Elena Casagrande, Valerio Schiti, Mahmud Anjum Asrar, Joelle Jones, Yildiray Cinar, Rafael Albuquerque, Tyler Crook, Jenny Frison, Pia Guerra, and Jill Thompson filed a lawsuit against Cadence Comic Art and Paolo Belfiore over what they claim is “egregious misconduct.”

In early December, attorneys asked for an adjournment until mid-January 2026 as the parties were meeting in an attempt to settle the lawsuit without the need for a trial. That hearing was supposed to take place tomorrow, January 14.

Now, the court has been informed that the parties have come to an agreement and settled and have asked for the case to be dismissed with the ability to reopen the case if the settlement falls apart. The plaintiffs have until February 12, 2026 to reopen the case as per the proposed order filed with the court.

Remember Alliance Entertainment’s Lawsuit Against Diamond? It’s Still Going On.

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With so many lawsuits going on when it comes to Diamond‘s chapter 11, it seems we’ve missed a bit one, Alliance Entertainment’s lawsuit against Diamond Comic Distributors for fraud during the initial bidding process for Diamond’s assets. The last we reported on this was August, so let’s catch up.

The last we left it, the defendants/debtors, were trying to get multiple complaints dismissed and filing counterclaims against each other.

In a lead up to a hearing the defendants submitted multiple replies to support their motion to dismiss some of the complaints. They rely heavily on the Asset Purchase Agreement that was part of the bidding process.

With filings to support those dismissals by other defendents.

There’s also filings to back up the arguments to not dismiss counterclaims.

Which all lead to a hearing and pretrial conference regarding all of this back and forth set for November 17, 2025.

But then Alliance got more filings in to argue for the dismissal of the counterclaim against it by Diamond also focusing on the Asset Purchase Agreement.

And why was all of the above rushed through? Because all of the motions by Diamond and its associates to dismiss the complaints by Alliance were denied! The reasons given were during the hearing and unfortunately that transcript hasn’t been released yet.

So, things continue… To kick off December, Alliance next filed a document responding to Diamond’s counterclaims against it. It’s a pretty standard document where they agree or disagree with facts stated in the counterclaim.

Which was followed up by defendant Raymond James & Associates, Inc.’s responses to Alliance’s complaint about fraud. The only thing that really pops up from that is that they admit information provided to the bidders was redacted, which is part of the whole case.

Followed by responses by Charlie Tyson, Dan Hirsch, and Getzler Henrich & Associates, LLC regarding Alliance’s complaint.

So what does all of the above mean? The complaint from Alliance against Diamond and its associates over fraud moves forward as well as their counterclaim back that Alliance broke the contract it agreed to.

Anthropic Case Attorneys Request $302 million in Fees and Expenses

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Anthropic

We’ve previously covered the Anthropic class action case. The lawsuit was over the artificial intelligence platform Anthropic’s use of copywritten material. The settlement includes $1.5 billion, about $3,000 for each instance of use. If an author has 3 books that were used by Anthropic, they’d receive $9,000 as an example. The plaintiff’s lawyers have asked a federal judge for $300 million in attorney fees plus expenses of about $1.97 million and $17 million reserve fund for future expenses. That’s around 20% of the settlement. There’s also a request of $50,000 for each of the three named plaintiffs in the case.

The motion was filed and they attorneys claim their 20% is “markedly below” the 25% benchmark usually given. Class counsel from Susman Godfrey and Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP would split 75% of the fees award.

The lawyers state they’ve spent more than 18,000 hours on the case which comes out to about $16,700 an hour.

Netflix is facing a Class Action Lawsuit Over its Warner Bros. Deal

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Netflix

The Netflix purchase of Warner Bros. is far from a done deal with regulatory hurdles needing to be passed, a hostile takeover attempt, and now a consumer lawsuit.

A proposed class action lawsuit was filed on Monday by a subscribe of Warner Bros.’s HBO Max who says the proposed deal threatens to reduce competition. This has been a concern raised by many over the bid which would have the top streaming service purchasing the third largest. The lawsuit states:

Netflix has demonstrated repeated willingness to raise subscription prices even while facing competition from full-scale rivals such as WBD.

US federal antitrust laws allow consumers to sue over mergers and acquisitions.

Netflix said in a statement:

We believe this suit is meritless and is merely an attempt by the plaintiffs’ bar to leverage all the attention on the deal.

Netflix’s proposal to purchase Warner Bros. was announced on Monday followed by a hostile bid by rival Paramount Sundance.

Updated: Cadence Comic Art Court Case asked for Adjournment Until January 2026

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Cadence Comic Art

In November, the lawyer for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Cadence Comic Art and Paolo Belfiore asked the court for an extension of time and adjournment. With a hearing set for December 9, the lawyer has again asked for an adjournment until mid-January 2026.

In August 2025, Becky Cloonan, David Marquez, Wesley Craig, Paolo Villanelli, Leila Leiz, Alessandro Cappuccio, Danai Christina Kilaidoni, Elena Casagrande, Valerio Schiti, Mahmud Anjum Asrar, Joelle Jones, Yildiray Cinar, Rafael Albuquerque, Tyler Crook, Jenny Frison, Pia Guerra, and Jill Thompson filed a lawsuit against Cadence Comic Art and Belfiore over what they claim is “egregious misconduct.”

The parties involved have been meeting in an attempt to settle the lawsuit without the need for a trial.

The Parties are still in the process of discussing a potential settlement and have commenced informal exchange of information to facilitate the same. Progress was made but additional time is required to complete this exchange of information and work out settlement terms.

Update: The request has been granted with the pretrial conference now set for January 14, 2026 at 11am.

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