Legal

INXS in legal fight with Hutchence rights owners

By | Published on Wednesday 22 September 2010

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the surviving members of INXS have been caught up in all sorts of legal wranglings of late thanks to a lawsuit pursued by a mysterious company called Chardonnay Investments, which is based in the Virgin Islands and about which very little is known.

What we do know about Chardonnay Investments is that they did a deal with former INXS frontman Michael Hutchence four years before his untimely death in 1997, in which the company took ownership of his cut of any broadcast royalties relating to INXS’s catalogue, as well as control of his likeness rights relating to TV and merchandise. It was also involved in the release of the singer’s posthumous eponymous solo album, released by V2 in 1999.

According to court papers only just released, Chardonnay recently sued the remaining members of INXS, their manager and lawyer, and various INXS-related companies alleging that the defendants had conspired to stop the claimant getting its share of royalties from the band’s Hutchence-fronted catalogue. The band denied the allegations.

Chardonnay also wanted the court to force INXS to hand over a share of their post-1997 profits, and asked the judge to wind up the partnership business that sits behind the band, presumably because then Chardonnay could deal directly with collecting societies and such like rather than having to get its cut of any royalties via the band’s company.

It seems that the judge hearing the case, Paul Brereton, has decreed that Chardonnay’s lawsuit was incomplete and that it needs to resubmit its legal claim before the case can proceed.

For reasons I don’t quite understand, it seems the court has already cleared four of the band’s five surviving members of the claims made against them, but Chardonnay’s allegations in relation to Andrew Farriss remain, possibly because he and Hutchence were the main songwriting partnership behind most of the band’s big hits. The band’s manager and US lawyer are also still listed as defendants.

Although, for now, Andrew’s brothers Tim and Jon, as well as Gary Beers and Kirk Pengilly, have been cleared, Judge Brereton has warned they may be renamed as defendants when Chardonnay resubmits its lawsuit.

The timescale for Chardonnay resubmitting its legal papers is not currently clear.



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