What happened. Richard Foster, who worked for seventeen years in WPP’s media buying arm, filed a wrongful dismissal suit in November 2025 and is seeking at least $100 million in damages. His amended complaint in August brought into the file an internal review by Sony, at the time WPP’s fifteenth-largest client. Sony allegedly concluded that in 2024 WPP kept $350 million in a China rebate pool and passed only $110 million to clients. The complaint also alleges that about 62 per cent of GroupM’s largest clients refused principal media deals, yet their spend fed the same inventory pool. WPP calls the filings baseless; on 26 August it asked for dismissal and sanctions, and wants Foster to explain how he obtained the Sony report. All of this is allegation; none of it is proven.
The bigger picture. The argument has shifted from whether the claims are true to how the report leaked. If an intermediary’s earnings can be shown to the client, they are a service fee; if they cannot, they are access rent. Access rent evaporates the day access gets cheap. As Google, Meta and Amazon reach advertisers directly through self-serve tools, the ground agencies will defend is revenue they can put on an invoice.
For executives: Write reporting and audit rights for rebates, discounts and principal media margin explicitly into your media agency contract.