{"id":2232,"date":"2024-08-14T17:13:56","date_gmt":"2024-08-14T17:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/barry-manilow-sued-by-hipgnosis-for-breach-of-contract\/"},"modified":"2024-08-14T17:13:56","modified_gmt":"2024-08-14T17:13:56","slug":"barry-manilow-sued-by-hipgnosis-for-breach-of-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/barry-manilow-sued-by-hipgnosis-for-breach-of-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Barry Manilow Sued By Hipgnosis for Breach of Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tLONDON \u2014 Hipgnosis Song Fund is suing Barry Manilow over bonus payments relating to its acquisition of the singer\u2019s catalog four years ago.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit was filed at the High Court in London on Monday (Aug. 12). The case is listed as breach of contract, but details of the claim are not publicly available. Three defendants are listed on the court filing: Manilow; Manilow Productions; and the artist\u2019s management company \u2013 Hastings, Clayton & Tucker Inc trading as\u00a0Stiletto Entertainment. News of the court case was first reported by the Financial Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement to Billboard<\/em>, a spokesperson for Hipgnosis described the dispute as a \u201croutine commercial matter concerning the interpretation of certain clauses in a contract regarding bonus payments, which the court is ideally placed to address.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhile we regret that this couldn\u2019t be resolved directly between the parties, we continue to hold Barry and his music in the highest possible regard and we are confident that this can be resolved in a fair and reasonable way,\u201d the spokesperson went on to say.<\/p>\n

\n\tBillboard<\/em> understands that the claim is for a low sum in the single digit millions. Representatives for Manilow either did not respond to requests to comment or could not be reached.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe court action comes almost exactly four years after Hipgnosis announced that it had acquired 100% of Manilow\u2019s worldwide recording royalties (excluding SoundExchange royalties) in his catalog, comprising 917 songs, for an undisclosed figure. The deal included some of the 81-year-old singer\u2019s biggest hits, including \u201cMandy,\u201d \u201cI Write the Songs,\u201d \u201cLooks Like We Made It,\u201d \u201cCan\u2019t Smile Without You\u201d and \u201cCopacabana (At the Copa).\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking in 2020, at the time of the catalog acquisition, Hipgnosis founder Merck Mercuriadis<\/strong> called Manilow \u201can incomparable artist, songwriter, arranger, musician and performer,\u201d while the veteran singer praised Mercuriadis for creating \u201ca new type of music company.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA great deal has changed at Hipgnosis since then.<\/p>\n

\n\tLast month, private equity group Blackstone completed a $1.6-billion acquisition of the six-year-old, London-listed investment trust that had amassed a huge catalog of 65,000 copyrights including songs by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Journey, Shakira, Blondie and Neil Young.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe takeover followed a tumultuous year in which the publicly traded fund faced a shareholder revolt following a series of missteps and accounting scandals, culminating in bitter infighting between the fund\u2019s board and its investment manager, Hipgnosis Song Management, which was led by Mercuriadis.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe former manager of star acts like Beyonc\u00e9, Guns N\u2019 Roses and Elton John announced that he was stepping down as chairman of Hipgnosis Song Management in July, having relinquished his role as chief executive officer earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON \u2014 Hipgnosis Song Fund is suing Barry Manilow over bonus payments relating to its acquisition of the singer\u2019s catalog four years ago. The lawsuit was filed at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2945,293,1462,2947,2946,412],"class_list":["post-2232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-barry","tag-breach","tag-contract","tag-hipgnosis","tag-manilow","tag-sued"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}