Legal

Gaga responds to lawsuit

By | Published on Monday 22 March 2010

The Gaga has spoken. Well, her lawyer has. It’s possible her telephone isn’t working on account of it being a large hat.

Yes, a legal rep of the chart topping shock-popster has responded to those allegations made by one of Gaga’s early collaborators last week that he is owed a big pile of cash after she reneged on a business agreement that gave him 20% of all her revenues.

As previously reported, songwriter and producer Rob Fusari claims that he transformed Gaga from a wannabe rock chick into a bankable pop star, coming up with her stage name and writing her early hits.

He adds that the couple – they were romantically involved at the time – set up a company that was meant to handle all of the Gaga’s business ventures, in which he had a 20% stake. But, he says, once worldwide stardom beckoned Gaga cut him out of her life, leaving him with just a handful of songwriting credits and a few hundred grand in royalties. He is suing her for $35 million

But, according to the Associated Press, the Lady’s lawyer Charles Ortner has filed a response with the court, claiming Fusari’s contract with the singer was “unlawful” because it was “structured in such a way as to mask its true purpose – to provide to the defendants unlawful compensation for their services as unlicensed employment agents”.

But Fusari’s lawyer has hit out Ortner’s claims, saying to position his client’s relationship with Gaga as that of agent/client is totally wrong, rather, Robert S Meloni argues, the couple were business partners, for which no licence is required. Fusari adds: “Rob was no more of an ‘agent’ for her than she is a Roman Catholic nun”.



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