Some pop law for you now. The Backstreet Boys have filed a lawsuit against Louis Pearlman and his company Trans Continental Records for the reimbursement of legal settlements they were forced to pay former band member Sam Licata and former managers Sybil Hall and Jeanne Tanzy Williams. The band claim that it was mistakes made by then representative Pearlman when Licata, Hall and Williams were cut out in 1993 that made them liable to make later legal settlements.
The band say they were induced by Pearlman to dissolve a jointly-owned company in 1993, in doing so cutting out Licata, Hall and Williams from the Backstreet Boys venture. That move was not altogether legitimate, and gave the three former associates a later legal basis to sue both Pearlman and the Backstreet Boys for future revenues they lost by being cut out in that way in 1993.
Williams did just that in 1999, and Hall and Licata followed suit in 2000. The Backstreet Boys subsequently settled with all three parties, though Pearlman is reportedly still in dispute with Hall and Licata over their 2000 lawsuit. It is the costly settlements that the band themselves have made with the three former associates that the Backstreet Boys now want Pearlman to compensate them for, on the basis that it was his negligence that left them liable to make the settlements in the first place.
It is not the first time the Backstreet Boys have taken legal action against Pearlman. They fought a legal battle in the late nineties over allegations that Pearlman was concealing revenues from the band. Pearlman's legal people will rely on the 2000 agreement that concluded that legal battle as a defence for the latest lawsuit. A spokesman for Trans Continental said this week: "[We] have been operating in accordance with the terms of the settlement agreement reached in December 2000 with the Backstreet Boys. This lawsuit is without merit and is a classic example of the typical frivolous lawsuits that the United States Congress is trying to eliminate."