An appellate court rejects Michael Jackson’s mother’s challenge to the $600 million sale of his catalog to Sony Music. Now the transaction can proceed.
A California appeals court ruled that Michael Jackson’s mother, Katherine Jackson, had no grounds to appeal a lower court’s approval of a $600 million contract with Sony Music for her late son’s portfolio. The appellate panel’s ruling grants victory to Jackson’s estate executors and allows the transaction to proceed.
The latest verdict described the first 2022 Sony arrangement as a “joint venture” that estate executors John Branca and John McClain had the authority to broker while Michael’s estate was in probate, a court-supervised process for resolving will-related problems.
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Katherine Jackson challenged the Sony purchase, arguing it breached the terms of her son’s will, which stated that all estate assets must be given to the trust, with his children and mother named as beneficiaries once probate is closed. She claimed in her filing that enabling the estate’s “single most valuable asset” to be transferred to a “new company” was fundamentally contrary to her son’s intentions. Furthermore, she stated that the transaction would make it “impossible” for executors to transfer the “entire estate” to the trust.
The panel describes the confidential transaction as “transferring a significant portion of the estate’s assets to a joint venture between the estate and a third party, in exchange for a large cash payment and an interest in the joint venture.” The three-judge court dismissed Katherine Jackson’s argument, stating that Michael’s will “gives the executors broad powers to manage estate property while the estate remains in probate.” Thus, the former judge’s decision did not violate Jackson’s will.
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“The probate court did not err in concluding that it was Michael’s intent to allow the executors to sell any estate assets, including those at issue in the proposed transaction,” the judges write. They claim that the agreement “neither diminishes the estate’s value nor impairs the executors’ future ability to transfer the estate’s assets to the trust.”
Michael Jackson’s estate has been in probate since his death in 2009, owing to continuing tax disputes with the IRS. When probate is finally closed, the entire estate will be transferred to the trust, with Jackson’s three children as the primary beneficiaries and Katherine as a lifetime beneficiary of a sub-trust that will revert to the main trust upon her death.
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