Court Rules In Favor of Status Quo For Managers of Prince Legacy

Following a hearing today in the Delaware Court of Chancery, Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick ruled in favor of the current Managers of Prince Legacy, LLC, ordering that L. Londell McMillan and Charles Spicer shall continue as managing members of the company during the pendency of their lawsuit against certain members of the company who attempted to amend the LLC agreement and insert themselves as managers. 

Prince Legacy LLC was established by McMillan, Spicer, and several of Prince’s heirs and beneficiaries at the closing of Prince’s Estate in 2022 to own and manage the 50% share of Prince’s assets received from the Estate by the remaining family and friends.  As widely reported, other heirs and family members Tyka Nelson, Omarr Nelson, and Alfred Jackson sold their interests to Primary Wave’s Prince OAT Holdings, LLC during the probate proceeding.  Prince Legacy was created to protect its members from third-party interests seeking to gain control over Prince’s assets. Prince Legacy and Prince OAT Holdings own and co-manage Prince’s assets, as ordered by the Probate Court in 2022.  

After the Estate closed, and in violation of the company’s LLC agreement, Sharon Nelson allegedly attempted to sell part of her member interests and began making unreasonable demands that the managers and members deemed not in the best interest of the company and Prince’s legacy. McMillan and Spicer, two longtime friends of Prince and Prince’s nephew Johnny Nelson, eventually filed a lawsuit earlier this month against the actions of other members of Prince Legacy LLC – Sharon Nelson, Norrine Nelson, Breanna Nelson, and Allen Nelson.  The plaintiffs’ lawsuit alleges that these other Prince Legacy members wrongfully attempted to amend the company’s LLC agreement to make it easier for them to sell out their interests and to remove McMillan and Spicer as managers of the company and appoint themselves in their place. 

The lawyers for Defendants Sharon, Norrine, Breanna, and Allen, who did not attend the hearing, opposed the Status Quo Order and argued that Defendants should now serve as co-managers of Prince’s valuable and complex estate, a proposition that McMillan and Spicer argued would cause irreparable harm to the company during a time where Prince Legacy is having substantial success.  Chancellor McCormick rejected these arguments and issued the Status Quo Order, keeping McMillan and Spicer in charge of Prince Legacy pending a further ruling on the validity of the amendment.  In doing so, she found that Plaintiffs had made a sufficient showing on the requirements for issuing the Status Quo Order – namely, that Plaintiffs had stated sufficient legal claims under Delaware law, that Delaware law favors the status quo, and that the balance of the equities weighed in favor of keeping McMillan and Spicer in control of the Company.   Chancellor McCormick also rejected the Defendant’s argument that the Plaintiffs’ legal claims lack proper jurisdiction in the Delaware courts.

Should the lawsuit proceed in the Court of Chancery, McMillan and Spicer will remain as Managers of Prince Legacy, ensuring the continued stability of Prince Legacy. 

_{*Disclosure:  McMillan is also Chairman of The Source and Source Digital, Inc., the company that owns and operates www.thesource.com. McMillan was also Prince’s lawyer, manager, and partner for over a decade in the 1990s and 2000s and was responsible for ending Prince’s contract in his legendary dispute with Warner Brothers Records.}