By ROTIMI AGBANA

The on-going legal battle over incessant breach of contract between Nigerian pop star, Douglas Jack Agu, popularly known as Runtown and his record label, Ericmany Entertainment, is still  far from being settled. The label, which initially issued a court injunction against the ‘Mad Over You’ crooner few months ago claiming N65 million damages has come hard on the singer again as it has slammed him with a N267 million suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja.

According to Eric Many Entertainment, the new court injunction was slammed on Runtown because he’s owing the label N267 million following his failure to appropriately deliver his album as agreed in the contract he signed. He deliberately made attempts to register his professional name, ‘Runtown’, without the label’s consent and abscond from the contract he signed with the label.   In a chat with our reporter, the General Manager, Ericmany Entertainment, Johnson Adumike, noted that the public has been misinformed, hence the need to set the records straight on the lingering legal battle.

“As you are aware, lately we have been in Court with Runtown over copyrights issues with regards to two collaboration videos he made without our prior approval.  Truly, the much-publicized legal action at the Federal High Court in Lagos was contrary to what many believe, not on the entire contract we signed with Runtown. It was only on the unapproved collaboration videos and we claimed general damages of about N65 Million for the copyright infringement.”  “We had thought that Runtown would see reasons to retrace his steps on our Contract following the ‘warning case’ on copyright infringement. This was not to be as he took to social media, especially Twitter to dish out insults on our Chairman, Prince Okwudili Umenyiora, boasting that he was no longer with Eric Many. His elder brother joined on Instagram boasting that his company, JSparrow Media, now books Runtown’s shows and no longer Eric Many. Under our Contract, the professional name ‘Runtown’ and other names are licensed to Eric Many. Yet, Runtown went to Trademarks Registry in Abuja and has been working to take the names from us”, he said.     He continued,

Runtown

“These and many other issues thrown up by the copyrights suit confirmed to us that indeed Runtown had walked out on us. We therefore decided to sue him for comprehensive breach of contract, to the sum of N266,694,755.

While our Contract is supposed to fall due for expiration on June 22, 2018, Eric Many now has an outstanding balance of about N266,694,755 to recoup on our investment and expenses on Runtown’s career. He is also yet to deliver an album which the Contract requires him to deliver to us during the Contract period. The Contract spells out the procedure for the production of the Album. Runtown is yet to initiate the procedure, whilst he focuses on Abuja Trademarks Registry, scheming on how to make us lose grip of his professional name.”

“On Wednesday, 23rd May 2018, following the advice of our lawyers, we withdrew our case at the Federal High Court on the music collaborations, to have more time and focus to pursue the case of breach of contract. Our lawyers had advised that since the breach of contract and recovery of our outstanding sum of N266,694,755 is a bigger picture, it would be more reasonable to drop the copyright case and focus our energy on the contract case. We accepted this advice and gave a go-ahead for the Lagos case to be withdrawn”, he concluded.

Showtime’s investigation revealed that since signing on to Ericmany Entertainment, Runtown had been performing at private shows without remitting funds to the label or going through the agreed process on the contract. An example was when he was to perform at the launch of Newton Hotel, Owerri, on December 12, 2014, but failed to show up after being paid.

Meanwhile, Runtown has defied all attempts to curb his incessant contract breach as he continues to go about his music-making craft like nothing is at stake. As at the time of this report, all efforts to reach him have proved futile as he has been unreachable. Sources close to the singer claim he may be intentionally avoiding the media for obvious reasons.