A former member of the board of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the organization are asking a judge to enter a judgment in favor of the HFPA, ending a long running lawsuit in which the plaintiff alleged his membership was wrongfully terminated.
On Tuesday, attorneys for Magnus Sundholm and the HFPA filed joint court papers with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Wendy Chang asking that the decree be taken in the wake of a May 19 notification from Second District Court of Appeal that there is currently “no appealable order” from a previous trial court ruling dismissing three causes of action against the organization.
The HFPA attorneys maintained in their court papers that the lawsuit was legally deficient and part of an effort to punish the organization for denying membership to Sundholm’s longtime partner, Norwegian journalist Kjersti Flaa.
Sundholm, a journalist for the Swedish daily Aftonbladet, alleged in his suit filed in December 2021 that HFPA’s ending of his membership two months earlier deprived him of benefits he received as a member.
The HFPA board accused Sundholm, a member since 2008, of “fraudulent, illegal conduct that was contrary to the interests of the HFPA,” according to the complaint. But Sundholm contended that he erroneously misidentified himself on an IRS form submitted in connection to his filing of a whistleblower complaint against the HFPA and that the organization used the mistake as an excuse to fire him for having brought the complaint.
Sundholm also tied his removal to a backlash for the actions of Flaa, who brought an antitrust suit against the organization in 2021 in which she alleged that within the HFPA there is a “culture of corruption” in which qualified candidates are barred from joining.