As Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com was first to report, earlier today a partially redacted version of Billy Corgan’s lawsuit against TNA and Dixie Carter, amongst others, was publicly released, revealing in full why he is suing the company and what he is seeking from his legal action.
The lawsuit details how Corgan started investing in TNA in late June to prevent the company from going into immediate foreclosure to Aroluxe Media, TNA’s production partners, who they owed money to and were about to default on repayments.
It is claimed that in August, when Corgan invested in the company for the third time to prevent foreclosure to Aroluxe again, that he entered into a “100% equity pledge agreement” with TNA owner Dixie Carter, which would allow him to gain control of the company if TNA became insolvent and/or she defaulted on the personal loan he had made to her. This agreement coincided with Corgan being appointed President of TNA, a title which he seemingly held in name only.
Corgan believes that TNA, just a couple of months later, is indeed insolvent, partially due to their refusal to provide him with updated balance sheets, and that if that’s the case, then he should be entitled to Dixie Carter’s 92.5% share of the company.
An interesting claim in the lawsuit is that both Dixie Carter and Dean Broadhead, TNA’s CFO/COO, denied to Corgan that TNA had been in negotiations with WWE over a potential sale of their video tape library, but that “Mr. Salinas” (probably a typo, if not a reference to Dixie Carter’s husband Serg Salinas) had acknowledged to the company’s wrestlers on October 2nd, 2016 (at a backstage meeting around the time of their Bound For Glory pay-per-view) that such discussions with WWE had indeed taken place.
Well, it wouldn’t be the first time that Dixie’s unguarded chatter had caused her trouble. It’s possible that Dixie wasn’t quite forthright enough in her denials to talent about rumours of talks with WWE. Dave Meltzer, in the October 10th Wrestling Observer Newsletter, described her recent meeting with TNA’s performers as follows:
This begs the question of how did she know that WWE was interested in buying TNA if no talks with them had recently taken place?
Corgan is claiming that Dixie Carter negotiating with WWE about selling TNA’s tape library, its most significant asset, behind his back, would constitute a breach of their August agreement. Similarly, Corgan asserts that Carter kept him in the dark about her talks with Anthem Media (the owner of the Fight Network channel that airs Impact in Canada) for a loan until after the deal had taken place.
Corgan believes that an “Event of Default” to his August loan to Dixie Carter has already taken place [namely, MCC Acquisitions Corporation‘s (a company with close ties to Anthem Media) funding of TNA’s October tapings] and thus he has been attempting to exercise his right to takeover her stock in the company ever since this event occurred, which ultimately led to him filing suit.
A hearing in this case regarding Corgan's request for a temporary injunction against Dixie Carter is scheduled for tomorrow. Anthem Media has already offered to repay Corgan’s loans on TNA’s behalf to make this lawsuit go away, but it seems that won’t be enough to satisfy Corgan, who still seems dead set on owning TNA. Owning, not buying, as the lawsuit has exposed that this wasn’t ever a sale in the traditional sense of the word. Instead, this was Corgan attempting to gain ownership of TNA via the backdoor of a defaulted loan, like Aroluxe before him and perhaps Anthem Media afterwards.