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Jacksons v AEG Timeline Legal Top Stories
A load more Jacko
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 5 October 2009
More Jacko, and the latest court development – other than LA judge Mitchell Beckloff telling a hearing that the late king of pop’s children are doing swimmingly under the care of their grandmother Katherine Jackson – is that the two men overseeing the dead singer’s estate are now cleared to deal with creditors.
We all know that Jackson left this earth with a fair few debts to his name, but so far those creditors have had no one they can chase as the singer’s affairs were left in the air post death. But, as of Friday, executors John Branca and John McClain were given the powers to do deals with those owed money from the Jacko fortune, which is said to include everyone from lawyers to security firms to stylists. Although Jackson’s debts were substantial, it’s increasingly thought that, with the various new deals Branca and McClain are putting in place, most can be paid off without having to sell the late singer’s biggest asset, his half of the Sony/ATV publishing company.
In related news, TMZ.com have reported more on the Jackson clan’s efforts to remove McClain and especially Branca from their executor roles. As previously reported, while the Jackson family are working with the two administrators of their late son/sibling’s estate, they are also trying to have them removed. Both men were appointed based on a 2002 will, and the Jackson clan say that Jacko had fired Branca since the will had been written.
Branca, while admitting his professional relationship with Jackson had been on and off, argues that he had started working with the singer again just prior to his untimely demise. TMZ report that not only is Branca saying that, but the legal man has a contract signed by Jackson just eight days before his death rehiring his services, which will presumably weaken the Jackson family’s attempts to remove him. Which is possibly why Branca has so far made no efforts to block the family’s moves to make a formal challenge to his status as an executor.
Finally in Jacko news, the Heal The World Foundation which, as previously reported, is being sued by the singer’s estate, has dismissed the legal case against it. The Heal The World Foundation was launched last year, utilising the name of Jackson’s own 1990s charitable organisation. Although the body is vague about its relationship with the late singer, it clearly implies it has links to him. The Jackson estate say there is no link whatsoever, and the charity is inappropriately using his name and image, and they are taking legal action to stop them.
Responding to the legal claim, the Foundation says they are friends of the Jackson estate, and that they therefore don’t understand the litigation. According to TMZ, a spokesman for the charity said this: “This suit has not been brought against the charity to ‘protect’ Mr Jackson, his estate, his legacy and certainly not his humanitarian aims as has been claimed. You don’t ‘protect’ yourself from a friend and we are no adversary”.
