The Nashville judge overlooking the lawsuit between Hall and Oates sided with Daryl Hall confirming that John Oates temporarily cannot sell his share of the band’s joint venture to Primary Wave until a private judge hears the case. After the two singers settled this in court, Chancellor Russel Perkins agreed to extend a restraining order that has been blocking Oates from selling his share of their joint venture to industry heavyweight Primary Wave.
Perkin’s ruled that Hall might face the “irreparable harm” of the sale being finalized before he is able to prove his claim that the deal breaches the terms of their partnership deal.
“If the transfer goes forward before the arbitrator has an opportunity to consider and rule upon plaintiffs’ application for interim injunctive relief in the arbitration, then it could, as a practical matter, render much of the relief Plaintiffs are seeking in the arbitration ineffectual,” Perkins wrote.
The new restraining order bars Oates from completing his sale to Primary Wave until February or until an arbitrator can decide whether to impose a similar restraining order.
In early November, Hall filed a private arbitration case against Oates, accusing him of disrupting their partnership agreement by attempting to sell his half to Primary Wave, a prominent music company that’s purchased catalogs linked to several musicians in recent years.
Fearing the deal would close before the arbitration case was heard, Hall then sent the current lawsuit in Tennessee, requesting a court order to ban the sale. Perkins quickly did so, blocking the Primary Wave sale from closing until Thursday when he could hear from both sides.
At a live hearing in Davidson County Chancery Court earlier on Thursday, music attorneys battled over whether to extend the restraining order. Representing Hall was Christine Lepera, who argued that it would be “most efficient” to put the sale on ice until the arbitrator could weigh in. Derek Crownover, representing Oates, fired back that no additional injunction was needed — that Hall was “not entitled to any relief at all.”
Though the case started out under seal , the legal battle between Hall & Oates has turned increasingly public over the last week. Hall said he had been “blindsided” by the Primary Wave deal and called it the “ultimate partnership betrayal” by his former partner. “Respectfully, he must be stopped from this latest wrongdoing and his malicious conduct reined in once and for all,” Hall wrote of Oates.
Hours later, Oates said that he was “tremendously disappointed” that Hall would make such “inflammatory, outlandish, and inaccurate statements” about him. “I can only say that Daryl’s accusations that I breached our agreement, went ‘behind’ his back, ‘acted in bad faith,’ and the like, are not true,” Oates wrote.
Following Thursday’s decision, the case will now head to private arbitration, for which an arbitrator has already been selected but an initial hearing has not yet been scheduled.
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