Will.i.am and a production company settled a lawsuit in which the Black Eyed Peas singer alleged the company reneged on repaying a $300,000 loan.
The attorneys informed Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Raphael on Monday that Will.i.am’s suit against New York Live Entertainment LLC was resolved, but no terms were divulged. The judge was scheduled to rule Tuesday on a defense motion asking that the case be dismissed on grounds it should have been filed in California. Raphael said in a tentative ruling that he believed the case was properly filed in California, but the issue became moot with the settlement.
The suit, filed Oct. 28, stated that a New York Live manager proposed filming the singer’s concert last May 11 at the Royal Albert Hall in London as part of its proposed television series “Landmarks: Live in Concert.”
The 42-year-old entertainer was “precisely the kind of superstar that New York Live needed to promote the series and secure a television deal,” the suit stated.
New York Live claimed to have a deal with PBS to broadcast the series and offered to pay the singer $250,000 if he agreed to allow the concert to be filmed and for permission to use his name and likeness to promote the series, the suit stated.
However, as the May 11 date approached, the deal was still not finalized and New York Live lacked the money to pay the crew to film the concert, according to the suit. In reliance on promises to repay the money back shortly, the singer said he wired the $300,000 to New York Live.
The filming of the concert went forward as scheduled, but New York Live did not immediately repay the loan, prompting the lawsuit, according to the complaint.
Defense attorneys urged the judge to dismiss the action, saying the parties’ agreement calls for disputes to be decided in New York courts. However, the singer’s lawyers maintained that the selection of New York as the filing jurisdiction was not mandatory and that a presumption existed that California was the preferred location because the plaintiff resides there.
