WOODY ALLEN - WOODY ALLEN WINS $5M SETTLEMENT FROM CLOTHING COMPANY

WOODY ALLEN WINS $5M SETTLEMENT FROM CLOTHING COMPANY

Director Woody Allen has agreed a $5 million (£3.3 million) out-of-court settlement with the American Apparel clothing company over the unauthorised use of his image.

The fashion firm had used an image of Allen in his 1977 classic Annie Hall in a billboard advertising campaign last year, provoking a privacy action from the prolific filmmaker.

It had been rumoured American Apparel planned to bring up Allen's personal life in its defence of the advert but the two parties have now agreed a settlement worth half of the sum Allen was originally seeking.

Speaking outside a federal court in New York, the Manhattan director said he thought it was "the largest reported amount ever paid under the New York right to privacy law".

The 73-year-old read a statement saying he hoped the settlement would "discourage American Apparel or anyone else from ever trying such a thing again".

Dov Charney, the founder and chief executive of American Apparel, had said the adverts - which were taken down in New York and Los Angeles after a week - had been intended as a social statement on the media's treatment of both himself and Allen.

While Allen's personal life hit the headlines in the early 90s after his ex-partner Mia Farrow discovered the director was having an affair with her adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn - who he has since married - Charney has been the subject of a number of several sexual harassment suits from former employees.

In a statement published in the Guardian newspaper, Charney, 40, commented: "Naturally there is some relief of not having to go through a trial but I also harbour a sense of remorse and sadness for not arguing an important issue regarding the first amendment, particularly the ability of an individual or corporation to invoke the likeness of a public figure in a satiric and social statement."