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Artist News Business News Legal
Jackson Estate sued over unpaid legal bill
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 24 March 2016
With the Michael Jackson Estate due to be flush with cash later this year once the sale of its half of the Sony/ATV music publishing company to Sony Corp goes through, now seems like as good a time as any to sue for a cut of the loot.
I mean, you probably need some kind of existing grievance with the former king of pop, but as half the people Jackson worked with seemed to end up in a legal dispute with the singer, that’s a lot of people. So think carefully, perhaps you had an unsuccessful alliance with MJ in 2003 and completely forgot about it.
Very much remembering their former alliance with Jackson is London law firm Atkins Thomson Solicitors, which says that it provided legal services to the singer for about two years leading up to his death in 2009. Jackson’s UK operations were expanding at the time, you might remember, with that ill-fated 50 night residency at London’s The O2 set to reboot the singer’s career and repair his flagging financial position.
The legal dudes say that they worked for the popstar from 2007 to his passing in 2009, and in doing so “provided hundreds of hours of services to Jackson across nearly a dozen matters”. They filed a creditor’s claim for $204,204.36 in November 2009, but the Estate is yet to pay, and late last year it formally rejected the lawyers’ invoice.
The law firm went legal earlier this week, suing the Estate and its overseers John Branca and John McClain in the Californian courts. According to The Hollywood Reporter the lawsuit claims: “Defendants have failed to honour Jackson’s obligations under, and has materially breached, the agreement with Atkins, and any implied covenants therein, by failing to make the payments as required”. The solicitors want their fees paid, plus interest and legal costs.
But the Estate’s legal rep Howard Weitzman told THR: “The Estate doesn’t believe the attorney’s claim for work allegedly done for Michael Jackson is valid and we intend to contest this lawsuit”. So at least one lawyer – ie Weitzman – will presumably get a bit of that Sony/ATV dosh out of all this.
