We told you a few weeks ago about the foreign posting of Hollywood Reporter New York bureau chief George Szalai. He in fact officially starts his new duties as London-based international business editor for the publication this week.

To help fill the Manhattan gap created by Szalai’s transatlantic move, THR has rewarded Eriq Gardner, the hard-working and often headline-grabbing contributor to the publication’s Hollywood, Esq. legal column, with the full-time position of senior editor. From today’s announcement:

A contributor to The Hollywood Reporter since 2007, Gardner has been the primary writer of Hollywood, Esq., a Webby Award-winning entertainment law blog launched in 2008 by THR news director Matthew Belloni and Gardner. The site has been recognized as one of the best law blogs by the American Bar Association.

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Last Friday afternoon, Sharon Waxman made like Nikki Finke and accused a Hollywood trade rival of failing to properly credit her website’s scoops. Except in this case, rather than it being a matter of Deadline.com vs. TheWrap, it was all about TheWrap vs. The Hollywood Reporter.

Waxman alleges that four recent TheWrap “exclusives” about Universal Motown Records, Comcast, Relativity Media, and Epic Records were subsequently picked up without a courtesy link by, respectively, THR reporters Shirley Halperin, George Szalai, Kim Masters, and (again) Halperin. Waxman was bylined on both the Comcast and Relativity Media pieces and says that as a result, she emailed THR executive editor Owen Phillips to complain about the lack in those two instances of a link back to TheWrap.

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