THQ declares victory against Jakks Pacific in royalty case

First, it was the WWE versus THQ and Jakks Pacific; now it’s THQ versus Jakks-Pacific. Thing is, the video game publisher has declared a victory against the toy maker with regards to the two companies’ royalty dispute. Is there any chance for another lawsuit dismissal?

More “hard court” action follows after the jump.

   

While it seemed that both THQ and Jakks Pacific had assumed a united front against WWE due to the lawsuits that the latter had filed against them, this has not been the case. Both the video game publisher and the toymaker have been attempting to settle a dispute between themselves with regards to royalty rates on WWE games, and it appears that THQ has declared itself the winner.

THQ touted its victory over its toy maker partner after the California Court of Appeals denied one of Jakks Pacific’s petitions – a petition by the toymaker to disqualify all but one of a slate of arbitrators considered by the judge to handle the dispute. The video game publisher also claimed that Jakks has been delaying arbitration on the matter, and that with the denial of the petition, the arbitration process is now moving forward.

Nevertheless, Jakks Pacific, in the person of CEO Jack Friedman, expressed optimism regarding the results of the dispute:

From Jakks Pacific point of view, we’re not at all nervous about it. We think we’re in a wonderful position and all of the economics are lined up that we should continue to get at least–if not more of–the same rates than we’ve been getting in the past.

One of the reasons behind Mr. Friedman’s confidence may be the fact that Jakks hasn’t lost the WWE game license, in spite of having lost the WWE toy license. In effect, the toy maker could make games for WWE while churning out action figures for WWE’s rival, TNA.Wrestling, whose brand rights Jakks Pacific had already signed up for.