UPDATED with YouTube response: YouTube today blasted a lawsuit by Disney over the tech giant’s alleged poaching of 20-year Mouse veteran Justin Connolly.
The suit filed in LA Superior Court seeks a preliminary injunction to block the recently departed president of Disney Platform Distribution from starting a new job at the Google-owned platform as global head of media and sports, with Disney calling it “extremely prejudicial to Disney for Connolly to breach the contract which he negotiated just a few months ago and switch teams when Disney is working on a new licensing deal with the company that is trying to poach him.”
YouTube says that won’t fly because the executive will “not be involved in any capacity with YouTube’s license agreement negotiations with Disney.” His new employment agreement “demands that he continue to adhere to his confidentiality obligations to Disney, and confirms he cannot bring, use or disclose any of Disney’s confidential or proprietary information during his work at YouTube.”
The Alphabet-owned streaming video platform went further, saying “Disney made clear that it intends to use Mr. Connolly as a pawn to advance the renegotiation of its license renewal with YouTube.”
YouTube also disputed Disney’s claim that Connolly had a three-year contract signed last November, saying he was an at-will employee, meaning he could be terminated at any time.
“Unsurprisingly, Disney does not cite a single instance of a California court awarding the relief it seeks, namely enjoining an employee like Mr. Connolly from working for the company of his choice, and requiring the employee to go back to work for his former employer. That is because no California court has ever issued such an injunction, nor, as explained below, could a California court lawfully do so. Nor is emergency relief appropriate here when Disney has known for over six weeks that Mr. Connolly intended to leave Disney and join YouTube.”
PREVIOUSLY: Corporate poaching never goes over well with Disney and even less so when they lose a key executive like Justin Connolly to the likes of the ever dominating YouTube. Which means, after 20 years at the Walt Disney Company in various capacities, and a 2024 inked employment contract, presumed lifer Connolly is now finding his sudden segue to the Google-owned social media and online video sharing platform a bit bumpier than expected.
Make that preliminary injunction and perhaps permanent injunction bumpy.
In a short but sharp breach of contract suit filed Wednesday in LA Superior Court, the House of Mouse want the courts to stop their recently departed president of Disney Platform Distribution from being able to start his newly created gig as YouTube’s global head of media and sports. Like never start it.
Casting any sentimentality aside regardless of Connolly’s previously long loyal service, and recalling there is a reason they call it show business and not show pals, Disney are insisting that the contractual rules are no game here.
“In April 2025, Disney became aware of YouTube’s offer of employment to Connolly,” says the suit against the exec and the video platform filed by heavyweight employment law firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp on May 21 in DTLA. On November 6 last year, Connolly signed a new contract set to kick in on January 1, 2025 and run to December 31, 2027.
That all changed last week.
“This news came at a critical time in Connolly’s tenure as President of Platform Distribution for Disney. Disney is in the midst of several important product launches and renegotiation of some of its largest distribution deals, and Connolly has been the architect of Disney’s distribution strategy and its principal negotiator,” Disney declares in the breach of contract, tortious interference and unfair competition action. “Critically, Connolly leads the Disney team negotiating a license renewal with YouTube. Connolly has intimate knowledge of Disney’s other distribution deals, the financial details concerning Disney’s content being licensed to YouTube, and Disney’s negotiation strategies, both in general and in particular with respect to YouTube.”
Or to put it in the starkest of Magic Kingdom terms: “It would be extremely prejudicial to Disney for Connolly to breach the contract which he negotiated just a few months ago and switch teams when Disney is working on a new licensing deal with the company that is trying to poach him.”
Disney/Getty Images
Both Disney and YouTube declined to comment on the lawsuit when contacted by Deadline today.
In this C-suite game of executive chairs, Connolly exited his Disney post after two decades last Friday, just as the company, as it makes clear in its BOC suit, was nearing a consequential series of negotiations. Connolly was to have played a central role in talks with distribution partners for ESPN‘s forthcoming stand-alone streamer and also, ironically, carriage renewal talks with YouTube TV. The companies’ current agreement expires later this year.
In fact, the exec was one of several senior leaders at ESPN and Disney (a roster that included CEO Bob Iger) to attend a media briefing last week about ESPN’s streaming strategy. When he circulated a memo later that week announcing his departure, it reportedly took employees by surprise given he had recently re-upped his contract.
Exposing that Connolly’s now past role and responsibilities at Disney was of a “special, unique, unusual, extraordinary, or intellectual character, which gives them peculiar value,” the company was taken the role of the injured party here not disingenuously at first glance.
“As a direct and proximate result of Connolly’s breach of the Employment Agreement, Disney has been harmed and will continue to be harmed,” the Bob Iger-run media colossus asserts in their filing. “Connolly threatens to, and unless restrained, will continue to breach the Employment Agreement, to Disney and its affiliates’ great and irreparable injury, for which damages would not afford adequate relief, in that they would not completely compensate for Disney’s injuries.”
Jill Goldsmith contributed to this report
