A federal judge has issued his ruling in the Golden Globes lawsuit, coming down hard on one side in the dispute between Dick Clark Productions and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Dick Clark Productions will remain the producer of the annual Golden Globes telecast after prevailing in the case, according to The Hollywood Reporter’s Hollywood, Esq.

Judge Howard Matz issued the decision Monday, and he had harsh words for the HFPA. Matz said the case shouldn’t have come to trial because the HFPA had negotiated a deal long ago giving Dick Clark Productions broad rights to produce the program as long as it aired on NBC, the story says.

The deal gave Dick Clark Productions such broad rights because it was negotiated in the early 1980s, when the Golden Globes were in disarray, the story says. "HFPA suffered from the absence of sound, business-like practices," Matz wrote in his decision, the storys says.

The Golden Globes will continue to air on NBC, which has an agreement to carry the show through 2018, the story says. That deal was negotiated with Dick Clark Productions without the apparent knowledge of the HFPA, which led to the lawsuit, the piece notes.

The judge’s decision portrays the HFPA as suffering from confused, dysfunctional business practices, while Dick Clark Productions was "represented by one experienced executive who was adept at dealing fairly and effectively with the often amateurish conduct of HFPA," according to the ruling.

The report notes: “The ruling points to testimony by Dick Clark executive Fran LaMania that is said to be compelling in that it proves the rights were handed over for as long as there was a network deal with NBC. ‘The sequence of events that everyone understands is you execute an amendment with us that says we extend Dick Clark for as long as necessary to fulfill the NBC deal,’ the ruling quotes LaMania as saying. ‘The minute that’s signed, I sign an NBC contract, and we’re finished.’”