Clint Eastwood continues to pursue legal action against the Lithuanian company Mediatonas, which has since shut down. Originally, the actor was awarded 5.3 million euros in damages in U.S. court. However, the Lithuanian courts have determined that the ruling is not enforceable. This is because the company has been liquidated. The lawsuit started because the CBD company was using Clint Eastwood’s likeness in ads without his permission.
Clint Eastwood was awarded the 5.3 million euros last October in federal court in Los Angeles. This ruling was also extended to the company that does have rights to his likeness, Garrapata. In US dollars, his award amount was $6.1 million.
Even though the Lithuanian courts have already ruled on the matter, Clint Eastwood’s team is still hard at work. Just last week, his lawyers filed a lawsuit with the Klaipėda Regional Court. This lawsuit is asking the court to rule that Mediatonas’ liquidation was unlawful. If so, Clint Eastwood’s lawyers want to legally take assests owned by the CEO of the company. Robertas Juodka, one of the partners at the law firm representing the actor, said that the company ended in order to evade the U.S. ruling. “There could have been no liquidation at all, because bankruptcy should have been declared, but the main creditor, the actor Eastwood, with his claims was not involved,” he said.
Apparently, the CBD company was told of the lawsuit all the way back in February 2021. The company was liquidated in December 2021. It was done outside of court by the former CEO of the company. On January 18th of this year, the Lithuanian courts threw out the U.S. ruling.
Clint Eastwood Strikes Back At Other CBD Companies, Too
Surprisingly, this is not the first time a CBD company has used the actor’s likeness without his permission. In 2021, he filed two other lawsuits against three other CBD companies. They had created online articles marketing their product. In the articles, they said that the actor liked their products. In addition to the articles, emails were faked that made it seem like he was a fan of their products. Some of them also said that Clint Eastwood had his own line of CBD products. That is simply not true.
The lawsuit says that Eastwood “Seeks to hold accountable the persons and entities that wrongfully crafted this scheme, spread false and malicious statements of facts about him, and illegally profited off his name and likeness.” Also included in the lawsuit were 10 online retailers. The actor and his lawyers claim that they tampered with online search results. Overall, the actor wants these companies to pay up for falsely using his name and reputation. Now, the ball is once again in Lithuania’s court.
