Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., a media and entertainment company preparing to separate its namesake Lionsgate movie studio from its Starz pay television and streaming business, has a new general counsel in veteran film industry executive and former O’Melveny & Myers partner Bruce Tobey.
Tobey’s legal chief position at Lionsgate was disclosed in an annual proxy statement filed July 20 by the Santa Monica, Calif.-based company known for its popular film franchises “The Hunger Games,” “John Wick,” and the “Twilight Saga.”
In another securities filing earlier this month revealed its plan to create two independent publicly traded companies. The long-awaited breakup of Lionsgate and Starz has been expected in Hollywood and could come by September.
A Lionsgate spokesman confirmed Tobey’s hire but declined further comment. Tobey joined Lionsgate as of March 27 as a successor to former general counsel Corii Berg, who stepped down as of Dec. 20, 2022. Lionsgate didn’t disclose a reason for Berg’s exit but awarded him more than $1.6 million in severance, according to a Feb. 15, 2023, agreement he reached with the company.
Berg’s exit package included accelerated vesting of Lionsgate stock and payments for 24 months of health insurance premiums. Lionsgate’s proxy shows that boosted Berg’s total compensation for fiscal 2023 to more than $4.3 million, up from nearly $2.3 million in 2022. He joined Lionsgate in 2018 after a 20-year career at Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.
Lionsgate paid $269,230 to Tobey in 2023, with most of that sum in the form of stock awards, per its proxy. Consolidation in the movie industry in recent years and an increased emphasis on streaming assets has made Lionsgate the periodic subject of takeover interest.
Tobey, whose work emails were once swept up in a data breach at Sony caused by North Korean hackers that exposed some of the inner workings of Hollywood and the lawyers within it, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
He spent the past decade at O’Melveny, where he was a partner and once led the law firm’s high-profile entertainment, sports, and media practice until early 2021. Tobey joined O’Melveny’s office in Century City, California as senior counsel in 2012, having previously been chief operating officer for CBS Films.
O’Melveny has previously handled legal work for Lionsgate, which once turned to the firm to advise on a takeover battle involving former shareholder Carl Icahn and a $375 million film financing deal with a Chinese company.
Lionsgate isn’t the only media industry mainstay taking its name from a ferocious feline to recently install a new top lawyer.
LionTree LLC, a boutique investment bank run by former UBS rainmaker
Sutton succeeded LionTree’s former top lawyer, Georg Krause-Vilmar, who left in May to become chief legal officer at ByHeart Inc., a baby formula startup that also hired former Sullivan & Cromwell associate Hannah Beard last month as a corporate counsel. Krause-Vilmar is a former special counsel at the firm.
