The increasingly convoluted web of litigation currently ensnaring Modular Recordings founder Stephen ‘Pav’ Pavlovic just became a little less tangled. As The Music reports, Universal Music Australia have triumphed in their lawsuit against the beleaguered record mogul.
The Supreme Court of New South Wales ruled in favour of the major label earlier today. As Tone Deaf previously reported, UMA claimed the industry impresario “wrongfully retain[ed] for his own benefit” money given to him by an unidentified Modular artist as repayment for an advance.
However, the strict details of the case remain unclear. Alleged emails between solicitors representing Pavlovic and Universal Music were read out during a hearing earlier this month, painting a critical portrait of Mr Pavlovic.
In documents related to the case, Universal described Pavlovic as “a person prepared to lie and give a false account of past events in an attempt to advance his interests in the case”. However, Pavlovic denied Universal’s claims and said the company owes him $32,500 in unpaid annual leave.
During the hearing, presiding judge Justice J Sackar accused Pavlovic of ‘filibustering’ during negotiations between the label and himself late last year and described him as “a thorn in Universal’s side”.
Having sided with Universal, the NSW Supreme Court agrees that Pavlovic was still bound by the terms of an agreement with Universal, who co-owned Modular Recordings, that he had entered into on Christmas Eve last year, despite his protest that the agreement had been terminated.
“We are very pleased by the Court ruling and look forward to continuing to work with Modular and its artists under the Universal Music Group umbrella,” Universal Music Asia-Pacific president George Ash said in a statement, via The Music.
“The Court’s ruling is in the best interests of artists and supports the label’s leadership transition and ongoing success.” Meanwhile, Universal have applied to dismiss charges brought against them by German publishing giant BMG.
The publishing company has accused Pavlovic, Modular, and Universal of withholding a million dollars in royalties related to Tame Impala’s overseas album sales. However, Universal insist BMG’s agreement was with “a totally separate US-registered company” operated solely by Pavlovic.
Tame Impala frontman Kevin Parker finally addressed reports a million dollars in royalties had been taken from his band earlier this week. Speaking to The Music, Parker said he was not aware of the extent of the situation surrounding the band’s royalties.
“When it actually hit the surface, and everyone knew about it, I was as surprised. I didn’t know they were going to sue anyone, I didn’t know there was going to be any suing going on, so I was as surprised and interested as anyone,” said Parker.
“I knew there was some stuff going on, obviously, and we knew it was going to happen, we knew something was on the horizon… We just didn’t know what was going to happen with it.”
“As far as I was concerned I’d written off that side of things, I’d heard that some money had gone missing, blah blah blah, that’s all I really thought about it.”
