The
on-going legal battle between Nigerian singer, Runtown and his record label,
Eric Many is far from over.
The label who
initially issued a court injunction against him a few months back claiming
damages of N65 million naira back then has just slammed the singer with a N267
million naira suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja.
According to the
label, the new court Injunction was slammed on Runtown because he is owing to
the label N267 million and he has not also adhered in line to deliver his album
appropriately and he has deliberately tried to register the name Runtown
without the label’s consent and abscond from the contract.
According to a
statement by the label’s general manager, Johnson Adumike, ‘as you are aware,
lately we have been in Court with Runtown over copyrights issues with regards
to two collabo videos he made without our prior approval.
Truly, the much-publicized
legal action at the Federal High Court in Lagos was, contrary to what many
believe, not on the entire contract we signed with Runtown. It was only on the
unapproved collabo videos and we claimed general damages of about N65 Million
for the copyright infringement’.
He went on to add
that, ‘we had thought that Runtown would see a reason to retrace his steps on
our Contract following the ‘warning case’ on copyright infringement. This was
not to be as he took to the social media, especially Twitter, dishing out
insults on our Chairman, Prince Okwudili Umenyiora, boasting that he was no
longer with Eric many.
His elder brother
joined on Instagram boasting that his company ‘JSparrowMedia’ is now the person
booking Runtown’s shows and no longer Ericmany. Under our Contract, the
professional name ‘Runtown’ and other names are licensed to Ericmany. Yet
Runtown went to Trademarks Registry in Abuja and has been working to take the
names from us’.
‘These and many other
issues thrown up by the copyrights suit confirmed to us that indeed Runtown had
walked out on us. We therefore decided to sue him for comprehensive breach of
contract, to the sum of N266,694,755’.
‘While our Contract
is supposed to fall due for expiration on 22nd June 2018, Ericmany now has an
outstanding balance of about N266,694,755.08 to recoup on our investment and
expenses on Runtown’s career. He is also yet to deliver an Album which the
Contract requires him to deliver to us during the Contract period.
The Contract spells
out the procedure for the production of the Album. Runtown is yet to initiate
the procedure, whilst he focuses on Abuja Trademarks Registry scheming on how
to make us lose grip of his professional name’.
‘Last Wednesday, 23rd
May 2018, following the advice of our lawyers, we withdrew our case at the
Federal High Court on the collabos to have more time and focus to pursue the
case of breach of contract.
Our lawyers had
advised that since the breach of contract and recovery of our outstanding sum
of N266,694,755.08 is a bigger picture, it would be more reasonable to drop the
copyright case and focus our energy on the contract case. We accepted this
advice and gave a go-ahead for the Lagos Case to be withdrawn’ he said.
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