Sibling singers Angus and Julia Stone’s claim they were taken for a ride by managers will require a big jet plane to a court in another continent to proceed any further.
The ARIA award-winning pair claimed they were owed millions of dollars after an agreement with London-based agency TaP Management was terminated in June 2023.
One line in the agreement, an “exclusive jurisdiction” clause, meant the lawsuit could not take off.
“This agreement shall be subject to English law and the High Court of justice, Strand, London shall be the sole court of competent jurisdiction,” it read.
The NSW Court of Appeal permanently stayed the lawsuit today following an appeal against an earlier decision in May, which left the door open for it to proceed.
The Stones claimed to be owed almost $2.8 million, alleging they were overcharged commissions on back-catalogue sales since late 2015.
They also alleged breaches of state laws governing the entertainment industry, which were anchored as a “strong countervailing reason” not to enforce the exclusive jurisdiction clause and proceed with the lawsuit in NSW.
But the Stones led no evidence showing the alleged breaches would not be entertained in the English court and the primary judge erred in finding the managers should have led evidence showing the claims would be, the appeal court found.
The claimed breaches were shown to be “not tenable and doomed to fail”, NSW Chief Justice Andrew Bell said in the decision to stay the proceedings.
“The disputes are governed by the exclusive jurisdiction clause and prima facie must be heard in accordance with the parties’ contractual agreement.
“NSW would be a clearly inappropriate forum in which to determine such closely related claims.”
The Sydney-born siblings began releasing music together in 2006.
Their hit single Big Jet Plane – a re-recording of a song that originally appeared on one of Angus Stone’s solo projects – took out top spot in the 2010 Triple J Hottest 100 and an ARIA award for single of the year.
The single has since gone platinum 11 times in Australia, equating to 770,000 local sales, and once in the United States, after passing one million certified units in April.
