OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Lo­cal event pro­mot­er Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment Lim­it­ed has filed a civ­il law­suit against Ja­maican dance­hall artiste Adid­ja Az­im Palmer, pop­u­lar­ly known as Vy­bz Kar­tel, aris­ing out of the can­cel­la­tion of the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, which was sched­uled to take place on May 31, 2025.

The mat­ter, filed in the High Court of Jus­tice on Tues­day, al­leges breach of con­tract, un­just en­rich­ment, and defama­tion, among oth­er claims, and seeks dam­ages in ex­cess of $7.3 mil­lion, in ad­di­tion to the re­cov­ery of US$1.1 mil­lion al­ready paid to the artiste un­der a per­for­mance agree­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to the State­ment of Case, Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment en­tered in­to a writ­ten agree­ment with Palmer on No­vem­ber 22, 2024, un­der which he was con­tract­ed to head­line the fes­ti­val for a fee of US$1.35 mil­lion, payable in four in­stal­ments. The event was ini­tial­ly sched­uled for Feb­ru­ary 28, 2025, but was lat­er resched­uled to May 31, 2025, re­port­ed­ly with the full knowl­edge and par­tic­i­pa­tion of the artiste’s man­age­ment team.

The pro­mot­er claimed that by May 29, 2025, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 81 per cent of the con­tract­ed fee had been paid, leav­ing a bal­ance of US$250,000, which it in­tend­ed to set­tle up­on the artiste’s ar­rival in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Court doc­u­ments stat­ed that tem­po­rary for­eign ex­change con­straints af­fect­ed the tim­ing of the fi­nal pay­ment, but that funds were avail­able on the day of the event.

The law­suit al­leged that Palmer failed to board his sched­uled flight to Trinidad on May 30, 2025, and that his rep­re­sen­ta­tives sub­se­quent­ly de­mand­ed full pay­ment pri­or to ar­rival—a con­di­tion which Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment main­tained was not re­quired un­der the agree­ment. On the day of the con­cert, the artiste pub­licly an­nounced the can­cel­la­tion through me­dia and so­cial me­dia plat­forms, with­out is­su­ing a for­mal writ­ten no­tice as stip­u­lat­ed in the con­tract.

Be­yond the con­trac­tu­al dis­pute, the claim out­lined the sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on pa­trons, many of whom had al­ready en­tered the venue or trav­elled from with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go and across the Caribbean to at­tend the event. Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment stat­ed that it was forced to halt pro­ceed­ings, is­sue pub­lic an­nounce­ments, and im­ple­ment emer­gency mea­sures to man­age crowds and en­sure safe­ty fol­low­ing the sud­den can­cel­la­tion.

The claim said the pro­mot­er un­der­took re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for re­funds, lo­gis­ti­cal co­or­di­na­tion, and pa­tron com­mu­ni­ca­tions in the af­ter­math, de­spite the fi­nan­cial strain. Thou­sands of tick­et hold­ers were re­port­ed­ly af­fect­ed, with many ex­press­ing frus­tra­tion and con­fu­sion af­ter the can­cel­la­tion was an­nounced hours be­fore the sched­uled per­for­mance. The com­pa­ny said it ab­sorbed sub­stan­tial costs re­lat­ed to re­funds, se­cu­ri­ty, staffing, venue hire, and tech­ni­cal pro­duc­tion, while al­so fac­ing rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age as pub­lic nar­ra­tives emerged as­sign­ing blame for the failed event.

In its fil­ing, Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment fur­ther al­leged that state­ments made by Palmer on so­cial me­dia fol­low­ing the can­cel­la­tion false­ly por­trayed the pro­mot­er as hav­ing mis­man­aged the event and failed to meet pay­ment oblig­a­tions. These state­ments, the com­pa­ny claimed, in­ten­si­fied pub­lic back­lash, ex­posed the pro­mot­er to ridicule, and un­der­mined trust with pa­trons, spon­sors, and in­dus­try part­ners.

The claim al­so not­ed that the pro­mot­er at­tempt­ed to re­solve the dis­pute through cor­re­spon­dence and pro­posed al­ter­na­tive arrange­ments, in­clud­ing fu­ture en­gage­ments and me­di­a­tion, but re­ceived no sub­stan­tive re­sponse. Le­gal ac­tion was pur­sued af­ter months of un­suc­cess­ful ef­forts at set­tle­ment.

Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment is seek­ing all monies paid, spe­cial and gen­er­al dam­ages, an in­junc­tion re­strain­ing fur­ther al­leged defam­a­to­ry state­ments, and in­ter­est and costs.

No de­fence has yet been filed, and Palmer has not pub­licly com­ment­ed on the law­suit.

Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Quan­tum Le­gal with At­tor­ney at Law CJ Williams lead­ing the le­gal team.