THE LORD OF THE RINGS - JUDGE FINES NEW LINE $125,000 FOR FAILING TO PROVIDE AUDITS

Seeming to undermine contentions by movie studios that their accounting practices are transparent and that profit participants in their films are free to examine their records, a federal judge has fined New Line Cinema $125,000 for failing to provide sufficient documentation about its revenue for The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. Director Peter Jackson has sued the Time Warner-owned company, demanding details of the studio's audits for the film. However U.S. Magistrate Steven Hillman ruled that New Line had provided only a fraction of the documents requested by Jackson's attorneys in the discovery phase of the trial.

26/09/2007