Madonna settles feud with record label
A feud between pop star Madonna and Warner Music Group has been settled after the recording giant agreed to buy her stake in the record label she co-founded.
Madonna helped set up the Maverick Records label 12 years ago.
She and partners Guy Oseary and Ronnie Dashev owned 60% of the company while Warner owned 40%.
Maverick scored some early successes and debuted with Alanis Morissette’s multi-platinum Jagged Little Pill in 1995.
But in March, Maverick alleged in a lawsuit that Warner Music – and its former parent, Time Warner Inc – had mis-stated Maverick’s profits and mismanaged the company.
Maverick claimed a breach of contract which cost Madonna and her partners millions of pounds.
Warner Music counter-sued, claiming the company had lost tens of millions of pounds.
The two sides had reached an apparent impasse when Warner Music announced it would buy out Madonna and Mr Dashev, of their share of the label.
Madonna will have no role in the company, while Oseary will keep his share and stay with Maverick as CEO.
“It was an effective way of settling the lawsuit,” said lawyer Bert Fields, who represented Maverick.
“It’s clean and equitable, and it doesn’t have anything to do with her record contract.”
Madonna will keep her own recording contract with the Warner Bros record label, which is a part of Warner Music and has been her home since 1984.
She has sold more than 60 million records with the label.
