Court action against Prince settled

RONAN McGREEVY

Fri, Feb 26, 2010

Pop superstar Prince has settled his action with promoters MCD over his decision to cancel a concert at Croke Park in June 2008.

At the High Court this morning, MCD counsel Maurice Collins said the case had been settled, and asked that it be put in for mention in a month's time to allow for the completion of the settlement.

Prince was sued by MCD for his refusal to play a concert at Croke Park scheduled for June 16th. MCD had claimed €1.7 million in damages plus costs.

The Purple Rain star only confirmed cancellation 13 days before hand and offered no explanation. His counsel Paul Sreenan SC confirmed that a settlement had been reached.

Mr Justice Peter Kelly asked if the settlement had been "confirmed" and if so, did the verb confirmed "in Prince speak mean the same as it means in English?"

Mr Sreenan said it had been confirmed "in a different sense to how it had been confirmed on the previous occasion". Mr Sreenan was referring to an email sent by Prince's assistant Ruth Arzate confirming that the Dublin concert would be going ahead.

Mr Justice Kelly said he was glad that the parties had reached a settlement and he stood the matter over until March 26th to allow the terms of settlement to be implemented.

No details of the settlement were announced in court.

MCD promoter Denis Desmond said he was "delighted" with the outcome, but sad for the 55,000 fans who had bought tickets for the event. He said MCD would not be out of pocket as a result of the action.

Mr Desmond said he was particularly happy that the damages he sought were agreed between both parties and were not inflated as had been suggested at an earlier hearing.

He said he would "gladly" have Prince to play a concert in Ireland and urged him to get a good manager.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0226/breaking48.html