Gawker: richard abate

Remainders: Anna Nicole, Dollface

Doree Shafrir — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 18:55:42 EDT

And now, an Anna Nicole Smith doll of your very own. We kinda, sorta see the resemblance. [eBay]

Literary agent Richard Abate wins in court against ICM, but the agency vows to continue trying to make his decision to go to Endeavor one that he'll regret. [Variety]

Olivia Palermo insists that the damning e-mail on Socialite Rank is a fake. [Radar]

Is there any Asian food chainlet in New York that pays their workers the legal minimum wage? Didn't think so. [Eater]

Bomb threat at the E! Channel forces Giuliana DePandi out of the building; Ryan Seacrest flees in Aston Martin. Next time, Seacrest! [Defamer]

Today In Richard Abate

Emily Gould — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 14:52:45 EDT

ICM vs. famously screamy literary agent Richard Abate: the battle rages on downtown in court! The LA Times sums up the conflict nicely. "The agency painted Abate as a dishonest, opportunistic agent, envious of a colleague's promotion. His attorneys, in turn, portrayed ICM as a financially stressed company that was panicking over its pattern of losing high-priced agents to its rivals." Hmm... maybe they are both right. But since this is a lawsuit, someone is eventually going to have to be righter. Will it be ICM or Abate?

Hard to tell. At this point, the Judge (Judge Leisure!) seems equally frustrated at Abate ("Your lack of memory [over details] 30-60 days ago disturbs me... You're wasting my time") and ICM (he told them they had failed to show that Abate had left inappropriately or pirated clients).

One thing is clear, though: Richard Abate isn't actually universally reviled. According to Galleycat, Abate's assistant Nicolette Cassell "burst into tears and did not stop crying for a good 10-15 minutes" when she was told that Abate was leaving the agency. So he's not a bad boss after all! —emily

Abate Tells Court: ICM Too Low Rent [LA Times]
Abate vs. ICM Day Two: Laying Out The Timeline [Mediabistro]

Richard Abate Trial Tidbits

Emily Gould — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 13:05:01 EDT

"Frankly, I feel like most of this is wasting my time," Galleycat quotes the judge in ICM v. Richard "Ari Gold-Plated" Abate as saying yesterday. (The lit agent jumped from ICM to Endeavor; wrangling ensues.) We don't want to imply that Galleycat is doing the same with its 9-paragraph dissection of what the first day of that trial was like, but if you're short on time and care about figuring out whether ICM is shadier than Abate or vice versa, here's the juicy stuff so far.

Per Abate's testimony: On January 25, 2007 with more than 11 months remaining in his 3-year, $260,000/year contract, Abate was told by ICM bigs that his contract would be renegotiated, giving him a raise to $500,000, with increases through to early 2010—if he signed on the spot. "Abate appreciated the offer, but had a lot of questions about ICM (which he didn't elaborate on, at least not yet, though he did mention one Friday where none of ICM's New York employees got their checks in a timely manner.)"

The next day, Abate called Endeavor to see whether they were interesting in having him rep books. He quit to join them on February 9th.

At least one Abate client found out that he was leaving ICM via some blog or other.

ICM General Counsel Richard Levy testified that email exchanges and FedEx slips that showed Abate or someone else at ICM "had sent confidential information from the offices to Abate's home."

Per Abate's testimony, ICM bigwig Sloan Harris is all "dude." As in, "Dude, sign it now. You won't get a better deal." —Emily

Abate Vs. ICM: Day One In Court [Galleycat]

Richard Abate One Step Closer To Being Ari Gold

Choire — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:13:15 EDT

Richard Abate—the literary agent who would be, nay, will be Ari Gold—had his lawyers smack back his former employers at ICM the other day in their pre-hearing wranglings. ICM's lawyers flipped out on him after Abate sent himself all his contacts and work docs from the office. Now we'll give this latest round to Abate and his new employers at Endeavor—the production of cheery emails between Abate and his boss, Sloan Harris (click excerpt at right for the exchange) seems fairly damning to ICM's claims. Also hilarious. Like two very manly gals text-messaging!

ICM Agent Doesn't Understand Value of Hotmail

Choire — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 16:15:09 EDT

What's the best thing an agent can do before ditching out of his contract with ICM to jump ship to Endeavor? Email all those confidential work documents to his wife—which is what Richard Abate did, according to a letter sent yesterday to the judge in the suit ICM is bringing against the brash lit agent.

The lawyers for ICM tell Judge Leisure (swear to God! Judge Leisure, the opposite of Judge Dredd?) this:

As this Court will see, the attachments thereto are voluminous and contain names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, book proposal information, and other notes regarding ICM's clients. According to ICM's records, this particular information was emailed to Mr. Abate's wife's personal email address while he was employed by ICM (in further breach of his duty of loyalty) and within hours before his internal announcement that he was leaving ICM in clear violation of his employment contract to start a book division at ICM's competitor, The Endeavor Group. Currently, ICM is continuing to discover additional emails that Mr. Abate sent in the days and months preceding his termination that it intends to introduce at the upcoming hearing.

Sadly, all these emails are sealed. Boo. But! Evidentiary hearing! March 22! See you there—because that's when we're going to hand-deliver instructions on how to open a damn Hotmail or Gmail account to poor Richard. When will everyone learn?

Richard Abate Sued By ICM

Emily Gould — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 16:37:58 EST

Variety may think that lit agent Richard Abate's track record is "classy," but his old bosses at ICM probably wouldn't characterize his exit as such. In fact, they're suing him, claiming that his departure for Endeavor violates his contract with them, which stipulated that he couldn't work for a competitor before 2008. They also claim that Abate "was making $20,500 a year as an assistant book publisher when it hired him in 1996. Thanks to ICM's contacts, Abate increased his earnings more than tenfold." Perhaps 'thanks to ICM's contacts' is a bit of an exaggeration, though? He did also, like, yell at a lot of people all on his own!

This Is The Thanks We Get, Talent Agency Tells Federal Court [CN]
Earlier: Richard Abate Takes His "Long Classy Track Record" To Endeavor

Richard Abate Takes His "Long Classy Track Record" To Endeavor

Emily Gould — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 11:25:59 EST

Richard Abate, the literary agent who sources tell us is "a nasty little man" and "one of those people who refuses to ever identify himself when calling, like you should obviously just be able to recognize the sound of his voice, and then eventually you do, and you hate yourself for it," will be the head of the new East Coast division of Endeavor, confirming a rumor we'd confusedly whispered when Abate left ICM. This move means the film agency, whose relatively few literary clients had previously been repped by Brian Lipson from his L.A. office, now thinks it's in a league with ICM and WMA. According to Variety, independent literary agents are none too pleased at what they perceive as the increased risk of big agency poaching. Sources at Endeavor strove to allay those fears, though, telling Variety that book agents are "more civil and less predatory by nature than film and TV agent counterparts in Hollywood." Oh, yes, especially Richard Abate! Gumdrops for everyone!

Endeavor Gets Bookish In Gotham [Variety]
Earlier: Richard Abate Leaving ICM For New 'Endeavor'?

Breaking: Richard Abate Leaving ICM for New 'Endeavor'?

Emily Gould — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 13:30:00 EST

We hear that near-universally reviled ICM mega-agent Richard Abate is leaving that agency in order to set up his own shop, which we hear will be called Endeavor. (Abate is perhaps best known to Gawker readers as the former mentor — okay, bossman — of agent to the blogsuperstars Kate Lee.) "Endeavor" strikes us as an odd choice of nomenclature, since there's already an Endeavor agency — albeit an LA-based one that doesn't solely represent literary clients. In fact, ICM was recently rumored to be buying that Endeavor, which probably has nothing to do with this. Anyway, weird.

Related (tangentially, maybe): The Agent Dance: ICM Denies Endeavor Rumor [Defamer]