In an unusual twist, AMC wants to interrupt its current profit participation lawsuit between the network and Robert Kirkman and other producers on The Walking Dead TV series to go to an arbitrator to have it determined that AMC's recent $200 million settlement with Frank Darabont, the developer of The Walking Dead TV series, does not have any impact on the claims of Kirkman and the others.

The possible issue is that Kirkman and the other producers (Gale Anne Hurd, David Alpert, Charles Eglee and Glen Mazzara) might have clauses in their contracts that would suggest that they would be entitled to whatever settlement that Darabont received and AMC wants to make it clear that that is not the case, but the network wants an arbitrator to rule on that and not a judge.

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The clause in question is a common one in contract negotiations called "most favored nation," which means that if, say, you sign on as an executive at a company, the clause would say that you get the same treatment as the executive at the company with the best deal. So if another executive gets a raise, you get a raise, too. Allegedly, Kirkman and the others all have "most favored nation" clauses in their deals and AMC wants to make it clear that its recent settlement with Darabont does not trigger that clause, but the networks wants a third-party arbitrator to deal with that outside of this current trial.

Kirkman and the other plaintiffs are saying no at the moment. In part because, as their attorneys note, “There is not a word in any of these contracts about arbitration. Instead, Kirkman’s, Hurd’s, Alpert’s, and Eglee’s contracts specify that disputes are to be settled with an action at law for money damages," but also because they apparently don't even know what Darabont's settlement says, as their attorneys also revealed in their complaint trying to get out of arbitration, “Indeed, Plaintiffs have not even seen the documentation of the Darabont settlement to ascertain whether they might have such a claim.”

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In 2013, Darabont (and his talent agency) filed suit against AMC for breach of contract due to profits that he says he was owed that were not paid after he was fired as the showrunner of the hit zombie series after its first season. Eventually, the other producers followed suit under the same basic legal approach as Darabont.

These disputes are about what is colloquially referred to in the entertainment industry as "Hollywood Accounting." With The Walking Dead, AMC decided to produce the series through its own studio, rather than license the show from an outside studio, which the network did with its previous hit shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men.

Darabont and the others have argued that doing so has led to unfairly low profit-sharing for them for as part of their deals with the network, while Darabont had other arguments, though, that were distinct from the others (his contract was different than the others), so that is why AMC does not believe that a settlement in Darabont's case should have any effect on the lawsuit of the other producers.

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Source: The Hollywood Reporter