Atari Names Jeffrey Kempler Senior Vice President, Business and Legal Affairs

Atari Names Jeffrey Kempler Senior Vice President, Business and Legal Affairs

NEW YORK, Feb. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Atari, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATAR), a leader in interactive entertainment, has appointed Jeffrey B. Kempler its Senior Vice President, Business and Legal Affairs, it was announced today by Jim Caparro, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, to whom he will report. Mr. Kempler succeeds Lisa Rothblum who was promoted to Executive Vice President, Administration and Operations.

Mr. Kempler, 41, will assume responsibility for all of Atari's business and legal affairs, including its in-house legal team; oversight of outside counsel; business negotiations and agreements; and protection and management of the Company's intellectual property rights, among other functions.

"As our industry continues to grow as a segment of the mass entertainment market, deal-making and partnerships with creative and development talent has become increasingly more important and those are areas in which Jeff has tremendous expertise," said Mr. Caparro in making the announcement. "That prowess combined with his strong legal background and experience in the entertainment industry makes Jeff a natural fit for Atari."

From 2001 through mid-2004, Mr. Kempler was Senior Vice President, Business and Legal Affairs of The Island Def Jam Music Group. In that capacity, Mr. Kempler oversaw all legal affairs for the company; led all business negotiations ranging from joint ventures and business partnerships to talent agreements; developed new business processes; and assessed mergers and acquisitions opportunities.

Earlier, Mr. Kempler spent eight years with Greenberg Traurig, LLP, based in Atlanta, Georgia, where he represented music industry talent and executives in an array of transactional matters, including but not limited to recording, publishing, merchandising, and endorsement deals, as well as in the creation of joint ventures. From 1989 to 1992, Mr. Kempler was an associate in the Entertainment Division of Loeb & Loeb, LLP.

Mr. Kempler received a B.A. from the University of Rochester in 1986 and a J.D. from Columbia University in 1989.

About Atari

New York-based Atari, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATAR) develops interactive games for all platforms and is one of the largest third-party publishers of interactive entertainment software in the U.S. The Company's 1,000+ titles include hard- core, genre-defining games such as DRIV3R(TM), Enter the Matrix(TM), Neverwinter Nights(TM), Stuntman(TM), Test Drive(R), Unreal(R) Tournament 2004, and Unreal(R) Championship; and mass-market and children's games such as Backyard Sports(TM), Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues(TM) and Dora the Explorer(TM), Dragon Ball Z(R) and RollerCoaster Tycoon(R). Atari, Inc. is a majority-owned subsidiary of France-based Infogrames Entertainment SA (Euronext - ISIN: FR- 0000052573), the largest interactive games publisher in Europe. For more information, visit http://www.atari.com/.


Source: Atari, Inc.

CONTACT: Nancy Bushkin, Atari, Inc., +1-212-726-4222,
nancy.bushkin@atari.com

Web site: http://www.atari.com/


-------
Profile: intent