Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris has raised concerns about payments made from her father’s estate in a new legal filing.
The 27-year-old is one of the King of Pop’s three children. After he died in 2009, she became one of the beneficiaries of his estate along with her brothers Prince and Bigi. Her grandmother Katherine was also provided for in Jackson’s will.
According to court documents obtained by Us Magazine, Paris Jackson has filed an objection to a request for legal fees from the executors of the estate, attorney John Branca and A&R executive John McClain.
The fees in question relate to work done in 2018, and the length of time it has taken for the estate’s executors to respond to the court’s questions about the payments is part of Jackson’s complaint.
In the filing, she also expresses concern about the practice of executors granting “so-called ‘premium payments’ for unrecorded attorney time.”
Her lawyer writes: “During this one six-month period alone in 2018, Executors request that the Court approve $625,000 in payments to three law firms for what they say is uncaptured time, without explanation as to why counsel was incapable of recording unbilled time, or why such a failure should not preclude payment.”
The lawyer continued: “Even worse, these payments appear, at least in part, to consist of lavish gratuities bestowed upon already well-compensated counsel.”
Jackson’s legal team argues that the payments reflect poorly on the executors of the estate, writing: “These irregular payments raise serious and substantial questions about Executors’ ability to effectively supervise counsel… and refraining from wasteful, six-figure gift-giving to themselves and their colleagues.”
The filing adds: “Despite repeated inquiries from the Court, Executors are unable to provide even remotely satisfactory explanation for their delay, nor have they provided the beneficiaries any sort of plan to fix this ongoing and worsening issue.”
Last August, it was reported that Jackson’s estate had been given the go-ahead by a Los Angeles appeals court to sell a portion of the late pop icon’s songs to Sony Music Group for about $600 million.
That ruling came over the objections of Jackson’s mother Katherine, who said the sale would be against her son’s wishes.
Katherine Jackson filed multiple objections after Branca and McClain announced their intention to go ahead with the sale to Sony in November 2022.
However, the court found that Jackson’s will granted his executors “broad powers to buy and sell estate assets in the estate’s best interests” while stipulating that “all of the estate’s assets will be distributed to the trust.”
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