Campaign's Global Network Reports on Foster Amended Complaint and Alleged $350 Million in Retained Rebates
An amended complaint filed by Richard Foster, former CEO of WPP's Motion Content Group, is drawing wide coverage in the advertising and business press. Reporting centers on Foster's termination, the alleged $350 million in retained rebates, and the complaint's allegations regarding a Sony Group Corporation investigation.
Campaign UK and its sister publications, Campaign US, Campaign Asia, Campaign India, and Campaign Canada reported on Foster's amended complaint. The complaint alleges that Sony, a WPP client, launched an investigation that found WPP retained $350 million in client rebates, including a "broker model that concealed the full value of rebates from clients."
Campaign Asia also questioned the implications for advertisers in a separate article, asking, "Is our CMO minding the store?"
Campaign UK reported on WPP's response to Foster's lawsuit, with WPP characterizing the case as a "naked attempt" to seek an "exorbitant payout."
The case, Foster v. WPP, is pending in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County (Index No. 659721/2025). The amended complaint was filed on August 13, 2026.
Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors represents plaintiff Richard Foster. Firm partner William A. Brewer III is lead counsel.
Read the Campaign UK article on Foster's WPP lawsuit.
Read the Campaign US article on Foster's WPP lawsuit.
Read Campaign Asia's analysis of the WPP-Sony controversy.
Read Campaign India's report on Foster's amended complaint.
Read Campaign Canada's report on Foster's amended complaint.
Business Insider Reports Sony Investigation Found “Global Crime Scheme” Within Foster’s Whistleblower Amended Complaint v. WPP
NEW YORK – Business Insider reports that Sony commissioned an investigation into WPP’s media rebate practices and, according to a new filing in whistleblower Richard Foster’s lawsuit against WPP, concluded that the advertising giant operated a “global crime scheme” that improperly withheld millions in rebates from clients.
According to Foster’s amended complaint, Sony presented WPP with its investigative findings in 2025. The Sony presentation describes the practice in China and other markets as a “fraud scheme,”attributing its design to the same senior WPP executives identified in Foster's whistleblower reports. The Sony investigation allegedly draws on their review of a criminal trial involving WPP executives in China, interviews with former WPP and GroupM executives, and WPP’s own contractual, financial and tracking records.
A Sony slide titled “impact for WPP Advertisers – China 2024” claims approximately $110 million went back to clients that year, while $350 million remained in WPP’s rebate pool “for later utilization.”
Sony’s report provides significant support for Foster’s allegations in his legal battle with WPP. Namely, that WPP’s media investment operation used clients’ collective advertising spend to generate rebates, routed those rebates through intermediary brokers, and retained a portion of the resulting value as profit rather than returning it to the clients whose spending generated it.
For Foster, Sony’s findings reinforce the various warnings he raised for years inside WPP – warnings he alleges the company answered by firing him when he refused to stay silent.
"Richard Foster asked a question any agency should be prepared to answer: Are your profits derived from loyal service to your clients, or not?" said William A. Brewer III, partner at Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors and lead counsel to Foster. “When Mr. Foster concluded that Defendants did not have honest answers to that question, he informed the CEO — and was summarily fired."
Read the Business Insider article on Sony's investigation into WPP's alleged rebate practices.
First Amended Complaint Draws Striking Parallel From Foster’s Warnings to Sony’s Findings
Today, Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors filed a First Amended Complaint on behalf of Richard Foster, the former CEO of WPP's Motion Content Group, adding substantial detail to his whistleblower retaliation claims and the evidence available to WPP which confirms his internal reports to senior officers. An independent investigation by Sony corroborates Foster’s claims regarding WPP’s improper rebate practices and the identity of the senior executives protecting them.
Foster spent years documenting the problem – and the executives behind it. WPP’s rebate practices were not the work of rogue actors, but a systemic operation built and protected at the highest levels. Both Mark Patterson, Global President of Markets and Business Operations for WPP Media, and Andrew Meaden, Global Chief Investment Officer for WPP Media, were identified by Foster as executives perpetrating WPP’s rebate model. Foster repeatedly warned leadership regarding how WPP improperly retains value generated by clients’ advertising spend. The amended complaint further alleges that these senior executives did not merely tolerate the practices, but condoned, supervised, and mandated them.
Foster put those warnings in writing and gave them to Brian Lesser in confidence. In December 2024, Foster delivered Lesser a confidential 35-page report, titled “Project Claridges.” There, he documented his calculations that GroupM improperly derived nearly $1 billion annually from “rebate deals,” and proposed solutions for reform. He also identified Mark Patterson and Andrew Meaden in the report.
Lesser shared Foster’s report to the very executive it explicitly implicated. Lesser revealed Project Claridges to Mark Patterson – the very executive Foster identified as an architect of the improper rebate practices. Within days of receiving Project Claridges, Patterson was elevated to a position directly above Foster: putting the executive Foster identified in direct control of the channels through which he could work, speak, and be heard.Foster was thenprogressively pushed aside, excluded from meetings, stripped of responsibilities, marginalized within WPP.
Executives fire Foster “without cause.” In the aftermath of Patterson receiving Foster’s report, Nicola McCormick, a senior legal officer at WPP, confirmed Foster’s fate at WPP: “sadly… you will not get what you need…” at GroupM now. Then, on July 10, 2025, Foster was fired “without cause.” WPP offered Foster a seven-figure termination package conditioned on his silence regarding the company’s rebate practices. He refused.
Then, Sony independently uncovered the same executives and scheme. Sony Group Corporation – one of WPP’s largest clients – launched an independent investigation into WPP’s rebate practices and reached the same conclusions Foster raised internally and outlined within Project Claridges: that WPP is running a “global crime scheme.” Sony’s investigation uncovered WPP’s rebate practices and their continued use following the 2023 China probe, which involved a handful of executives who funneled approximately $176 million into their personal accounts, with one executive receiving a life sentence. Sony also discovered WPP’s rebate structures were then “re-engineered by Patterson and Meaden to ensure its ongoing operation,” to discreetly continue to profit off of the improper practice and evade detection.
Foster seeks $100 million in damages. The case, Foster v. WPP, is pending in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, New York County (Index No. 659721/2025).
Together, Project Claridges and Sony’s investigation tell the same story from opposite sides of the table. Foster’s amended complaint is the ultimate portrait of whistleblower retaliation inside a conspiracy to preserve an unlawful operation and the executives it implicated.
Another Lawsuit Against AJ Capital Affiliate Seeks Full $82.5 Million Debt on the Graduate by Hilton Roosevelt Island
NEW YORK, N.Y. – August 13, 2026 – Affiliates of commercial mortgage lender ACRES Capital sued the AJ Capital Partners entity that guaranteed the loan on the Graduate by Hilton Roosevelt Island on Wednesday, seeking the full outstanding debt of more than $82 million.
AMF Levered II, LLC and ACRES Real Estate SPE 10, LLC filed the complaint in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Nassau County, against Graduate Hotels Real Estate Fund III LP. Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors and Steven E. Losquadro, P.C. represent the Plaintiffs.
This is the third lawsuit filed by the lender against the Graduate guarantor, including a prior lawsuit for the full amount of the debt based on AJ Capital Partners’ decision to shutter the hotel in November 2025 and a lawsuit based on the Graduate’s failure to fund a debt service reserve account that served as security for the loan.
The lender extended $69.5 million in September 2022, secured by a leasehold interest in the hotel.
On July 20, 2026 — two weeks after the Commercial Division denied its motion to dismiss a related enforcement action — Graduate Hotels Real Estate Fund III filed a counterclaim seeking damages from the lender. The complaint alleges that filing constitutes an "Interference Event" under Section 9.3(c)(v) of the Loan Agreement, which makes the debt full recourse when the guarantor asserts a non-compulsory counterclaim against the lender in an enforcement action arising from an event of default.
The complaint further alleges the guarantor irrevocably waived any right to assert a counterclaim of any nature with respect to its guaranty obligations.
The borrower defaulted on obligations including funding the debt service reserve account and the replacement reserve and reimbursing the lender's expenses. The lender accelerated the debt on October 10, 2025, and demanded payment in full on August 6, 2026. The guarantor has not paid. The debt totals no less than $82.5 million as of July 31, 2026, and continues to accrue interest at the default rate.
"The guarantor waived its right to assert any counterclaim, and then asserted one," said William A. Brewer III, partner at Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors and lead counsel for Plaintiffs. "The loan agreement specifically addresses that conduct, and it makes the entire debt recourse."
The borrower closed the hotel in November 2025. In April 2026, Cornell University terminated the ground lease, and the Plaintiffs have a separate action pending in New York County seeking the same debt on independent grounds arising from that termination. The Plaintiffs do not seek double recovery and will credit any amount recovered in one action against the other.
Candidates Ask Federal Court to Block New York's Even Year Election Law From Applying to Their 2026 Race
August 11, 2026 - Candidates from three counties seek to run under New York's century-old odd-year framework while First Amendment challenge proceeds.
A group of local candidates from Nassau, Westchester, and Rockland counties on Monday asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York for leave to seek a preliminary injunction that would keep the Even Year Election Law ("EYEL") from applying to their 2026 races. Each was elected in November 2025, but the EYEL shortened their terms and forces them to run again in 2026 — this time on an even-year ballot alongside national and statewide contests, instead of the odd-year cycle New York has used for local elections for more than a century.
The candidates are Jennifer DeSena, John Ferretti, Mazi M. Pilip, Anthony Colavita, and Lauren Marie Wohl. The case is New York Republican State Committee, et al. v. Kosinski, et al., No. 2:25-cv-06083 (E.D.N.Y.).
"A candidate's ability to reach voters is not a courtesy the state can switch off when it becomes politically inconvenient — it is a right the Constitution guarantees," said William A. Brewer III, partner at Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors and lead counsel for the Plaintiffs. "New York spent a century keeping local races on their own calendar for good reason. The Even Year Election Law throws them onto a ballot where a town supervisor competes with a presidential campaign for the same airtime and the same attention. That is a fight local candidates cannot win, and it was designed that way. We are asking the Court to step in before these candidates are forced to run under it."
BACKGROUND
Enacted in December 2023, the EYEL moves most local elections outside New York City from odd to even years, placing town and county races on the same ballot as federal and statewide contests. The Second Amended Complaint filed July 9, 2026 names the four New York State Board of Elections commissioners in their official capacities as defendants.
William A. Brewer III Recognized Among Crain's New York Business' 2026 Notable Leaders in Accounting, Consulting & Law
August 10, 2026 – NEW YORK – Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors announces that founding partner William A. Brewer III has been named to Crain's list of New York Business' 2026 Notable Leaders in Accounting, Consulting & Law.
The annual recognition honors professionals whose leadership, vision, and contributions helped shape New York’s professional landscape. The 2026 honorees were selected by Crain's New York Business based on their professional achievements, leadership, and lasting impact within their industries and communities.
View the full list of 2026 Notable Leaders in Accounting, Consulting & Law.
Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors Welcomes Back Noah Peters as Partner in New York
August 5, 2026 – Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors welcomes Noah Peters back to the Firm as a Partner in its New York office following his tenure in Washington revitalizing the federal workforce and shaping policy at the highest levels of the federal government.
Peters returns to Brewer after serving as Senior Advisor for Policy & Legal Affairs/Counsel at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, where he advised the OPM Director on federal workforce law, privacy & risk, administrative law, litigation, rulemaking, and government-wide implementation matters.
Before joining OPM, Peters was a Partner in the Firm’s Dallas office, where he handled high-stakes litigation and appellate matters. At Brewer, Peters played an important role in its representation of the NRA in National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo, the landmark 2024 Supreme Court case concerning government coercion of private parties to suppress disfavored speech.
Peters arrived at Brewer after serving as Solicitor of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, acting as the agency’s chief legal officer and chief litigation counsel. There, he represented the FLRA before the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and U.S. District Courts, successfully briefing and arguing federal appeals while securing dismissals in multiple district-court cases.
"Noah is an exceptional lawyer," said Firm Partner William A. Brewer III. "His work at the highest levels of government provides valuable experience in confronting difficult legal and policy questions. We are pleased to welcome him back."
Peters earned his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he also received an M.A. in American Legal History. He earned his B.A. in Politics and History from the University of Virginia.
Actress Cindy Latch Secures Contempt Orders Against Biote Witnesses and Tech Vendor Zoho in Image Misuse Lawsuit
Dallas — July 20, 2026 — A Texas court entered three contempt and sanctions orders in actress Cindy Latch’s lawsuit alleging the unauthorized commercial use of her name, image and likeness, finding “willful disobedience” of prior court orders and ordering additional discovery aimed at uncovering the full scope of the alleged misuse.
The rulings mark the latest development in Latch’s broadercampaign to hold companies accountable for the continued use of her image and likeness after she revoked authorization in 2021.
In separate orders, the court initiated contempt proceedings against Biote representatives Kevin Key and Nancy Mamann – both represented by McKool Smith – following earlier discovery disputes regarding the witnesses' depositions. The court found both witnesses willfully disobeyed prior court orders, requiring them to return for the substantive completion of their depositions, produce additional documents, and pay Latch's attorneys' fees and costs.
In a third order, the court found marketing software provider Zoho Corporation’s discovery production “incomplete.” While Zoho produced records showing it transmitted take-down notices relating to Latch’s name, image, and likeness 8,517 times, the company provided zero information regarding the recipients.
The court also rejected Zoho’s argument that compliance was impossible, ordering the company to identify those recipients, produce additional records, and permit a forensic examination of all relevant systems.
“Defendants argued this information couldn’t be produced, and the court wasn’t persuaded,” said William A. Brewer III, partner at Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors and counsel to Ms. Latch. “These orders compel the production of evidence which should have been produced from the beginning. Importantly, it moves us one step closer to determining the full scope of the unauthorized use of Ms. Latch’s name, image and likeness.”