On a side note about the Maverick Surf Contest we got this press release today. Looks like FORMER MAVERICKS SURF CONTEST ORGANIZER LOSES LEGAL BATTLE MAVERICKS SURF VENTRUES ORDERED BY JUDGE TO PAY
With the winter big wave surf season on the horizon, a San Francisco Superior Court judge has put an end to the legal dispute between Mavericks Surf Ventures, Inc. (MSV) and Mavericks surf pioneer Jeff Clark, holding that MSV breached its contract with Clark to pay amounts owed to him as a result of their wrongful ouster of Clark, self-dealing and failure to honor their original agreements.
Clark filed a lawsuit in January 2010 against Mavericks Surf Ventures Inc. (MSV), the company he co-founded to run the Mavericks Surf Contest, and its directors Keir Beadling and Mark Dwight. The complaint, filed with the Superior Court of San Francisco County, stated that MSV breached its contracts with Clark, withheld payments on those contracts, and breached its fiduciary duties to shareholders by the Board’s self-dealing, squandering of corporate assets and failure to disclose basic financial and other corporate information.
Both sides reached a mediation agreement in March 2010, requiring MSV to compensate Clark over time through 2017. MSV failed to honor that agreement, forcing Clark to file another lawsuit against MSV and leading to Clark’s motion for summary judgment. The order was signed by Superior Court Judge Peter Busch in San Francisco, stating that the court was presented “uncontroverted evidence that the parties had entered into a valid and enforceable contract” and that MSV failed to honor that contract.
Clark is credited with pioneering Mavericks, the big wave surf spot off the California coast, at the age of 17. Clark surfed Mavericks alone for 15 years before it became recognized by the surf community as one of the biggest and most dangerous big waves in the world. In 1998, Clark founded the Mavericks Surf Contest in Half Moon Bay, Calif. Clark partnered with Evolve Sports in 2003 to represent him as an athlete, and later they created Mavericks Surf Ventures to run the Mavericks Surf Contest. MSV terminated Clark as Contest Director in June 2009. Clark immediately resigned from the Board.
Clark has remained quiet on the details of the controversial ousting, but has stated that the two parties had “different visions and goals” for the contest.
“When I signed on to partner with Keir and Evolve Sports, I trusted them to do the right thing, to honor my spirit and passion for surfing,” Clark said in a statement in 2010. “I made a mistake and I trusted the wrong people. They refused to honor the contracts they created and turned the contest into a circus.”
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