Hipgnosis Songs Fund Says Merck Mercuriadis ‘Is Refusing to Indemnify the Company’ Against Liquidator Lawsuit, Targets High Court Legal Action

Closer to February’s start, Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF) revealed that it was starting legal action versus its financial investment advisor to protect “a complete indemnity” from a claim sent by a defunct Hipgnosis entity. Now, this indemnity push has actually encompassed creator Merck Mercuriadis.

HSF simply recently revealed the wider scope of its indemnity pursuit, having actually at first divulged strategies to protect itself from liability towards the top of the month. This liability stems particularly from a grievance, supposedly declaring breach of fiduciary responsibility and more, imposed by the liquidators of the long-defunct Hipgnosis Music Limited (HML).

In the interest of brevity– we formerly checked out HML’s distinctly complicated history at length — Merck Mercuriadis in 2015 established the HSF predecessor together with people who were later on sentenced to jail time for their function in a pensions fraud.

Structure on that point, HML upon being ended up in 2018 supposedly owed millions to lenders. The specific information of the High Court grievance have not yet been openly exposed, however proof recommends that the fit followed a comprehensive examination from the kept in mind liquidators, who called as offenders HSF, its Hipgnosis Song Management (HSM) financial investment advisor, and Mercuriadis alike.

In the middle of an expanding rift in between HSM and HSF (the revamped board of which has actually taken a number of considerable actions given that an essential October vote from financiers), the latter hasn’t been reluctant to attempt and distance itself from the suit since late. (Well before the management-investor face-off went into high equipment, HSF in July of 2022 stated it ‘d “realise” of the action.)

To be sure, HSF, obviously unenthusiastic in restoring its financial investment advisory pact with HSM, suggested on February 5th that it ‘d designated Kastle Solicitors “individually of the other accuseds … to examine the claim.” The tunes fund stressed its strategies “to look for to protect an indemnity from” HSM as well as Mercuriadis.

That effort obviously stopped working to cause the wanted outcome; February 19th saw HSF claim that HSM had actually turned down the indemnity demand. HSF stated it would “bring a Part 20 Claim in the High Court versus the Investment Adviser in which it will look for a complete indemnity.”

As pointed out at the beginning, HSF has actually taken a similar action versus Mercuriadis, per a brand-new release that carefully looks like the statement message worrying the claim versus HSM.

HSF “has actually now been notified by” Mercuriadis that he’s “declining to indemnify” it from the HML liquidators’ match, according to the text. “The Company now plans to bring a Part 20 Claim in the High Court versus Mr Mercuriadis in which it will look for a complete indemnity,” the simple file continues to define.

At the time of this writing, Mercuriadis didn’t appear to have actually reacted openly to the advancement; regardless of their heightening disagreement, HSF and HSM are both still releasing releases on the primary Hipgnosis Songs site.

In any occasion, it goes without stating that the news isn’t a motivating indication for the long-deteriorating HSF-HSM relationship– particularly offered the previous’s continuous effort to bring prospective third-party brochure purchasers to the table.