EPThttp://www.complexitygaming.com/news/3129/
Their points in brief are as follows :
1- Complexity contacted Stephano first on September 1st as he was interested in joining the team.
2- Millenium and Complexity were in a bidding war for Stephano, but never pressured him into signing with them.
3- Stephano was fully aware of the terms of the contract.
4- Stephano contacted CatZ and Jason Bass (the manager of Col) and is quoted as saying "Don't worry I won't change my mind again." He then signed a legally binding contract.
5- Stephano would've been "one of the highest paid SC2 players in the world" at Complexity and they ensured that he would get "global travel" including to Korea.
Complexity are "seriously consider(ing) legal action in this matter"
UPDATE : http://www.complexitygaming.com/news/3126/#
Apparently Stephano did sign a contract with Complexity and they won't let him go without a fight.
Also, a statement from Jason Lake :
On September 20 2011 03:00 jlake02 wrote:
For Mr. Page to insinuate we improperly "disoriented" a young player is an outright lie. We have spent weeks negotiating with Stephano and countering offers made by Millenium. This was no quick pressure situation.
We will take a step back and analyze the situation but I hope Millenium honors the rule of contract law and does not disrespect it in eSports. Doing so would set a precedent that would undermine all we are collectively trying to accomplish.
We will evaluate our options but I do not see a way we can allow this blatant disrespect for the contractual process to go unanswered. We will be contacting legal counsel in France and investigating courses of action.
For Mr. Page to insinuate we improperly "disoriented" a young player is an outright lie. We have spent weeks negotiating with Stephano and countering offers made by Millenium. This was no quick pressure situation.
We will take a step back and analyze the situation but I hope Millenium honors the rule of contract law and does not disrespect it in eSports. Doing so would set a precedent that would undermine all we are collectively trying to accomplish.
We will evaluate our options but I do not see a way we can allow this blatant disrespect for the contractual process to go unanswered. We will be contacting legal counsel in France and investigating courses of action.
http://www.millenium.org/starcraft-2/accueil/actualites/stephano-signe-avec-millenium-le-president-de-millenium-s-exprime-51014
Cedric "Cedrix" Page, President of Millenium :
"Since the start of Millenium, we dreamt of a french eSport platform that would discover young players with great potential, would support them in their passion and would follow them to the summits of skill...
Stephano joined Millenium at the start of Starcraft 2, practically unknown. We supported him as best as possible until today. He is now considered a great hope for the world circuit with amazing potential, and to have to let him go to another team would have been a complete failure for us, a nonsensical thing.
The techniques used by Complexity to recruit Stephano were quite disorienting to influence our young player towards a bad decision. After a long discussion, Stephano understood his mistake and decided to stay with Millenium for the next 12 months
This troubled day was, however, full of lessons.
This morning, with the announcement of our player to an American team, the majority of the french community considered this transfer as a logical step. I even saw some amateur writers of our site write with sadness that Millenium "could not compare."
Now, let's stop bringing ourselves down, lets stop thinking that a french player has to play abroad to succeed. The Millenium.org site has more page his then SK-Gaming.com or any other european or american team outside of Team Liquid. Our budget is certainly one of the biggest in the world in terms of E-sports teams.
So let's stop seeing ourselves as worse because we are a french team.
Stephano will sign, as agreed a CDI(Contrat a duree indeterminee, ie: a contract of work with no expiration date) as a "Professional player," identical to those signed by professional sportsmen. He will travel across the world to attempt to win many tournaments, from Asia to the USA. We put our hopes and dreams of a French victory on him, but we also expect a lot from our other Starcraft players and our soon to be League of Legends team...
Let them make us dream and cheer! Let Millenium shine, for all the passionate fans of electronic sports that we are!"
(Thanks to PlaGuE_R for the proper translation!)
Sad news for complexity, especially since he was only very recently announced to be joining them but great for Millenium and the French E-Sports scene.
