11
Credit: DisneyA total of 25 major cities across the U.S. are suing Disney for unpaid bills.
The Walt Disney Company is a huge entity that entails Disney Parks & Resorts, merchandise sales, and many media entities, including its own streaming platform in Disney+, Hulu, and many major movie studios and intellectual properties, like Pixar, Star Wars, and Marvel.
However, it seems like Disney may be in a bit of hot water with 25 cities over unpaid fees.
Reported by Blue Ribbon News, the lawsuit was filed in Dallas County on behalf of Rowlett and Abilene, Allen, Amarillo, Arlington, Austin, Beaumont, Carrollton, Dallas, Denton, Frisco, Fort Worth, Garland, Grand Prairie, Houston, Irving, Lewisville, McKinney, Mesquite, Nacogdoches, Pearland, Plano, Rowlett, Sugar Land, Tyler, and Waco.
The Disney lawsuit alleges that its streaming services, Disney+ and Hulu, have not paid annual franchise fees, which are required by the Texas Public Utility Regulatory Act (PURA) and used to fund basic city services.
“With this lawsuit, we hope to ensure streaming video companies’ compliance with their PURA obligations moving forward and also recoup unpaid franchise fees from the Disney, Hulu, and Netflix streaming services as follow-on relief,” said Rowlett Mayor Blake Margolis. “Franchise fees are an important source of city revenue. We have an obligation to our residents to ensure that these companies comply with state law and pay what is owed to the City of Rowlett.”
In addition to Disney, the popular streaming service Netflix is also included in the lawsuit.
“Disney, Hulu and Netflix have long withheld statutorily required payments to cities throughout Texas, depriving them of fees that help fund essential city services,” said McKool Smith principal Steven Wolens. “This case was filed on behalf of our municipal clients to ensure future compliance with PURA and recoup significant fees owed by some of the nation’s largest streaming services.”
At this point, neither Disney nor Netflix has issued a comment on the Texas lawsuit.
This isn’t the only lawsuit that Disney is currently facing. A federal judge recently approved a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Disneyland Resort, and several actors and former Cast Members are suing Disney over its vaccine mandates that cost many their jobs.
What do you think of this Disney lawsuit? Let us know in the comments.