The Killers will be paying legal bills for a while to come!
Three years ago, the band’s former manager, Braden Merrick, sued them and their current manager for alleged breach of contract.
Merrick was seeking at least $16 million from each of them. He claimed the band fired him without any real legal reasons and that they didn’t pay him royalties under his producer agreement, among other things.
The band then quickly filed a petition with the California Labor Commissioner, in order to void their contract with Merrick and recover their paid commissions to him since apparently he failed to ever get a talent agent license.
Now, years later, the band is countersuing Merrick in Las Vegas and they’re claiming he showed patterns of incompetence, had many double-dealings, along with breach of contract and fiduciary duty, and unjust enrichment.
Sounds like a typical manager!
According to a statement from the band, they claim to have suffered “multi-million-dollar damages in missed concerts and lost touring revenues, and via the bungling of merchandising and promotional opportunities.”
The band’s attorney said “Perhaps more offensive than his violations of law and secretive double dealing is listening to Merrick’s contingent fee lawyer pretending it was an absentee manager and not the band’s exceptional talent that propelled them toward success early on in their career. This bit of fiction will be no more successful in federal court than it was before the Labor Commissioner. Juries understand that the days of getting something for nothing are over.”
[Image via WENN.]