 On January 20, 2009, Martin Garbus held a press conference in New York announcing a new suit against Marvel Entertainment, Inc., in which he represented Nelson Thall and John Petrovitz against Marvel Enterprises, Inc., Marvel Characters, Joan Lee (Stan Lee's wife), Joan C. Lee (Stan Lee's daughter), Isaac Perlmutter (Marvel executive), Avi Arad (Marvel executive) and Arthur M. Lieberman (Marvel executive) for recovering more than $750,000,000 in profits owed by Marvel to Stan Lee Media since 1998.In the press conference Garbus explained his theory that Stan Lee retained an interest in his early characters by virtue of having been a 'co-creator' of those characters, and that he had assigned these to SLM in an October 15, 1998 agreement.Garbus believes that Marvel's claim to the characters rests on a similar agreement signed a month later, by which time Lee had nothing left to assign (having already given the characters to Stan Lee Media).