Warner Bros. Discovery sues Amazon over HBO Max exec hire, seeks order blocking future poaching

A new Warner Bros. Discovery lawsuit against Amazon, accusing the tech giant of poaching a top HBO Max marketing executive 16 months before her contract expired, comes with an unusual request: a court order barring Amazon from hiring any employee of the media conglomerate as long as they’re under contract.

The suit, filed July 21 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, centers on Pia Barlow, the longtime HBO Max executive who was announced last week as Amazon MGM Studios’ new head of series marketing. Her Warner Bros. Discovery contract ran through October 2027.

She resigned in June and was due to start at Amazon on Aug. 3.

Warner Bros. Discovery accuses Amazon of “hurriedly seeking to pirate away a number of contracted employees,” calling the company a “digital bull in a china shop” that chose to build its entertainment workforce by raiding Hollywood rather than hiring from scratch.

The suit says Amazon tried weeks earlier to recruit another WBD executive under contract through December 2027 and failed, and was pursuing at least one more when the suit was filed.

The complaint says Barlow’s departure “conveyed a troublesome message throughout Plaintiffs’ executive ranks” — that contractual commitments could be disregarded “whenever a larger paycheck appears.”

Amazon declined to comment in response to GeekWire’s inquiry.

The company acquired MGM in 2022 for $8.5 billion, its second-largest acquisition ever behind the $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods in 2017. The deal brought a catalog of more than 4,000 films and 17,000 TV shows, and the studio was rebranded Amazon MGM Studios in 2023.

It’s led by Mike Hopkins, head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios.

Warner Bros. Discovery itself is in the middle of being sold. Paramount Skydance agreed in February to buy the company for about $81 billion, outbidding Netflix, but 12 state attorneys general sued this month to block the deal, and Paramount has pushed its closing deadline to as late as June 2027.

The complaint goes further, alleging Amazon didn’t just recruit Barlow but also picked her lawyer. Warner Bros. Discovery says the firm now representing her is based less than a mile from Amazon’s Seattle headquarters and “has a well-publicized, long-standing relationship with Amazon as outside litigation counsel,” and that Amazon is paying its fees. The firm isn’t named in the complaint.

Barlow, who lives and works in Los Angeles, is not a defendant.

Warner Bros. Discovery says its lawyers exchanged letters with Amazon and with that attorney before filing suit, demanding Barlow not leave. It makes the fee allegation on “information and belief,” a legal phrase indicating a claim based on inference rather than direct evidence.