Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A pro­mot­er has sig­nalled its in­ten­tion to ap­peal a de­ci­sion of a High Court Judge to dis­miss its case against a group of ri­vals and Niger­ian singer and song­writer Bur­na Boy, al­leg­ing that they con­spired to­geth­er to com­man­deer its bid to host a con­cert in De­cem­ber 2022. 

De­liv­er­ing a de­ci­sion last week, High Court Judge Jacque­line Wil­son agreed to strike out the un­law­ful means con­spir­a­cy case brought by Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers Pro­duc­tions on the ba­sis that it was not a law­ful­ly reg­is­tered com­pa­ny ca­pa­ble of pur­su­ing it. 

In a press re­lease is­sued on Sun­day, Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers said that its at­tor­neys were in the process of chal­leng­ing the out­come, which came be­fore the judge con­sid­ered the mer­its of its case. 

“Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers has em­pha­sised that the pur­suit of the ap­peal is in­tend­ed to en­sure that its claims are ful­ly heard and ad­ju­di­cat­ed. The com­pa­ny re­mains com­mit­ted to ad­vanc­ing its po­si­tion through the prop­er le­gal chan­nels,” it said. 

In dis­miss­ing the case, Jus­tice Wil­son up­held an ap­pli­ca­tion brought by lawyers for Shawn Moses and his com­pa­ny SM En­ter­tain­ment Ltd, led by Chase Pe­gus, who claimed that the pro­ceed­ings could not be sus­tained as Cash Mon­ey was not a reg­is­tered com­pa­ny as con­tend­ed. 

Jus­tice Wil­son agreed as she found that Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers was in fact a part­ner­ship un­der the Part­ner­ship Act. 

She said, “The claim was brought by the claimant in the ca­pac­i­ty of a com­pa­ny in­cor­po­rat­ed un­der the Com­pa­nies Act when the claimant did not, at any time, so ex­ist and had no le­gal pow­er to sue in that ca­pac­i­ty.

“The re­sult is that the pro­ceed­ings brought by the claimant were a nul­li­ty and were in­ca­pable of be­ing re­vived by an amend­ment to the plead­ings,” she added. 

In the law­suit, Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers sued Moses and his com­pa­ny; Dami­ni “Bur­na Boy” Ogu­lu; Jules So­bion and his com­pa­ny Cae­sar’s Army Ltd; Ogu­lu’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive Osi­ta Ugeh and his com­pa­ny Duke Con­cept LLC; Crys­tal Cun­ning­ham and her com­pa­ny Twist­ed En­ter­tain­ment Bar­ba­dos Inc; and Chris­t­ian Bern­hardt and his com­pa­ny Unit­ed Tal­ent Agency LLC, which al­so rep­re­sents Ogu­lu. 

Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers claimed that in Oc­to­ber 2022 it en­tered in­to an agree­ment with Unit­ed States-based Space­ship II Inc for Gram­my Award-win­ning Ogu­lu to per­form at a show he was plan­ning to host on De­cem­ber 16 that year. 

It claimed that a con­tract was draft­ed by Unit­ed Tal­ent and was signed by its rep­re­sen­ta­tive Michael Durham. The con­tract was not signed by Ogu­lu as ne­go­ti­a­tions were still on­go­ing. 

Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers claimed that it be­gan plans to host the show in­clud­ing iden­ti­fy­ing a venue, seek­ing spon­sors and hir­ing a mar­ket­ing firm. 

It claimed it held dis­cus­sions with Moses and Ugeh to serve as in­vestors and or­gan­is­ers of the con­cert. 

It al­leged that So­bion formed a What­sApp group to con­tin­ue dis­cus­sions and Durham shared in­for­ma­tion on its pre­lim­i­nary agree­ments for Ogu­lu’s ap­pear­ance at the con­cert. 

Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers claimed that af­ter the in­for­ma­tion was shared, Bern­hardt stymied its at­tempts to make pay­ments to se­cure Ogu­lu’s ap­pear­ance at his con­cert. The con­tract was sub­se­quent­ly ter­mi­nat­ed. 

It claimed that Moses, Bern­hardt and Cun­ning­ham then en­tered in­to a con­tract with Ogu­lu for him to per­form at a con­cert in Trinidad on the same night it in­tend­ed to host its event. 

It al­leged that Moses, So­bion, Ugeh and Cun­ning­ham “sur­rep­ti­tious­ly” used the in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by Durham to “fi­na­gle” the con­tract and un­just­ly en­rich them­selves from the prof­its from the con­cert. 

Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers threat­ened le­gal pro­ceed­ings be­fore the con­cert but it (the con­cert) went ahead as planned. 

The de­fen­dants in the law­suit de­nied the al­le­ga­tions lev­elled against them. 

Cun­ning­ham made an ap­pli­ca­tion to strike out the case on the ba­sis that the con­tract dis­pute should be re­solved in the US where the orig­i­nal agree­ments were struck. 

Bern­hardt and Unit­ed Tal­ent made a sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tion as they claimed that Cash Mon­ey did not have valid grounds to bring the case. 

Jus­tice Wil­son de­ter­mined Moses and his com­pa­ny’s ap­pli­ca­tion first and the oth­er de­fen­dants ben­e­fit­ed as a re­sult. 

Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers was rep­re­sent­ed by Farai Hove Ma­sai­sai, Mari­ka Trim and Bernelle-Joy La Fou­cade. 

Moses and his com­pa­ny were al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Matthew Al­la­har, Math­ias Sylvester, and Vikash Lal. 

So­bion and his com­pa­ny were rep­re­sent­ed by Christo­pher George, Kyr­ia Roops­ingh and Anu­rad­ha Dean. 

Bern­hardt and Unit­ed Tal­ent were rep­re­sent­ed by Shali­ni Camp­bell and Joia Re­ece, while Ste­fan Mungals­ingh rep­re­sent­ed Cun­ning­ham. 

Al­though Ogu­lu was named as a par­ty he did not par­tic­i­pate in the case.