Former WWE and WCW superstar Marcus “Buff” Bagwell and former WWE, ECW and WCW superstar Scott “Raven” Levy filed a second amended lawsuit against the WWE on May 19th in the United States District Court of Connecticut in regards to their allegations that the WWE owes them royalties from the usage of material featuring their work in matches and segment from WCW and WWE on the WWE Network, according to a report from PWInsider.com who note that both are alleging that WWE had breached the contracts of them by failing to pay direct sales royalties.

The report notes that in the amended lawsuit, Levy specifically stated that his June 2000 contract with World Wrestling Entertainment provides a royalty from material featuring his work via a direct sale, with direct sale defined as “including without limitation, at the arena, via mail order sales or directly on television, or via the internet” and that WWE has direct sales of their content via WWE Network subscriptions, yet fails to pay royalties on those sales and noted in the lawsuit that according to the language of his contract, WWE would pay royalties on video cassettes, videodiscs, CD-ROM or other technology, including technology not yet created and that the streaming technology of the WWE Network falls under the technology not yet created. WWE has argued in previous filings that there is no direct sale involved in WWE Network subscriptions because there is no physical product being sold to a consumer, just that they are granted a license to watch material on the WWE Network as long as their subscription is active, to which Levy is arguing that talent should be paid for the WWE Network under the same royalty rate that they would receive contractually from pay-per-view and video sales.

The report further states that Levy is arguing that once the WWE purchased the ECW and WCW video libraries, those libraries would now fall under the promised royalty rate that he was promised contractually from WWE for direct sale of WWE events and that when he was released, the agreement to release him from WWE noted that WWE had completely bought him out of any claims against them or any money owed other than the obligation to pay him the royalties due to him pursuant to and as determined by the Contract, which would be the June 2000 contract, while Bagwell made similar claims in the lawsuit about the WWE failing to pay royalties on material on the WWE Network that features WCW and WWE content featuring him and is also alleging that by selling WCW content but not pay him his royalties, WWE breached the agreement that both parties signed when he was released by the company, while he is also alleging that WWE has failed to pay royalties within 90 days, was late in paying royalties and has not paid any royalties since February 2014 when the WWE Network launched and that the non-payment of royalties is another breach of his contract.

The lawsuit alleges that WWE breached its fiduciary duty to Levy and Bagwell because WWE were in a superior position when it came to knowledge of finances and money owed to the talents, while the amended lawsuit carried over the allegation that Bagwell’s WWE contract allows for him to have his own independent certified account audit WWE-WCW’s books citing, “for the purpose of verifying the accuracy thereof, during WCW’s normal business hours and upon reasonable notice. Such audit shall be conducted in a manner that will not unreasonably interfere with WCW’s normal business operations. Wrestler shall not audit WCW’s books and records more than twice during any calendar year and no such audit shall be conducted later than one (1) year after the last statement of royalties is given, delivered or sent to Wrestler. Each audit is limited to seven (7) days in duration. Statements of royalties may be changed from time to time to reflect year-end adjustments, to correct clerical errors and for similar purposes.”

The report notes that according to the lawsuit, Bagwell attempted to do that in June 2016 and was told initially an audit could be done in late July or early August 2016, only to later be told by WWE’s counsel, K&L Gates, that there would be no audit as Bagwell’s accountant asserted a pretextual and invalid audit request to attempt to stealthily obtain that information and that since Bagwell is not paid WWE Network royalties, that there is nothing to audit. Bagwell is now claiming that since WWE blocked his attempts to audit the records as he was contractually allowed to do, that the company has forfeited any claim that he did not satisfy any of WWE’s prerequisite actions contractually before he filed his lawsuit, while the lawsuit also claims that the WWE have violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act by failing to account for millions of dollars in owed WWE Network royalties and failed to pay royalties due within 90 days following the end of the quarter, while the lawsuit alleges that by doing so, WWE was immoral, oppressive, unscrupulous and caused substantial injury to Bagwell, Levy and other professional wrestlers who signed similar contracts, while it also alleges that WWE Network Inc., a subsidiary of WWE, has licensed video material to other licensees without the knowledge of Levy and Bagwell and that doing so was a breach of contract when it came to their royalty payments with Bagwell and Levy claiming that they are filing as a class lawsuit on behalf of similar performers, alleging that the class is owed in the area of $5million and have requested a jury trial.