Sirius XM’s most notorious DJ Howard Stern is suing his employers over an alleged failure by the satellite radio broadcaster to pay him and his agent Don Buchwald performance-related stock bonus awards.
Via his production company One Twelve, Stern filed…
Sirius XM’s most notorious DJ Howard Stern is suing his employers over an alleged failure by the satellite radio broadcaster to pay him and his agent Don Buchwald performance-related stock bonus awards.
Via his production company One Twelve, Stern filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court of the State of New York on 22 March claiming that under the terms of his original contract with Sirius, which was signed in January 2006 more than two years prior to its merger to XM, he was entitled to stock awards if the company exceeded certain annual subscriber targets. His agent would then receive 10% of One Twelve’s bonus.
In response, Sirius XM denied the claims pointing out that the awards were not made beyond the initial award in 2006 because the company did not include the addition of the XM subscribers following the merger.
Sirius signed up Stern to a hugely lucrative five-year contract in late 2004 with his first show starting in January 2006. On his first day, Sirius issued One Twelve with 34.3 million common shares for the company exceeding subscriber targets set in the original contract of 2004. One Twelve then received a second stock award in January 2007 of 22 millions shares.
Late last year Stern signed a new five-year deal with Sirius XM, the terms of which were not disclosed.
