The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday at 9: 30am, in one of the 89 rooms of hearing a soundtrack in the new palace of Justice of Paris, in the Batignolles district. In this skyscraper staircase 38-storey and 160 meters in height, the lawyers of Laura Smet et David Hallyday ask judges to freeze 75% of the royalties from Johnny Hallyday. Why 75%? Since this is the amount to which they would have been right with their half-sisters Jade, 14 years old, and Joy, 10 years, if the rocker had not disinherited his four children in the signing in 2014, a testament to california law for the sole benefit of his wife Laeticia.
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These royalties are the treasure of war of the rocker. They are paid as a performer for his three record labels: Sony, Universal and Warner Music. Johnny Hallyday was a singer outside the norm. Its contracts are. In Warner, the rate of royalties on the sales of their latest albums is around 25%, which is three times as much as an artist lambda. At this rate, and with historical sales of more than a million CDS sold for the album posthumous My country, it is the Love came out last October, Laeticia Smet, his widow and sole heir, is guaranteed to touch 2.5 million euros. This amount is substantial, it is necessary to withdraw the advance paid by Warner Music a few days before the death of Johnny Hallyday by the end of 2017. This amount, itself, is not known.
An emergency
The procedure chosen by Laura Smet David Hallyday is an emergency procedure known as référé. This urgency is justified by the discovery during the summer of a procedure in Los Angeles launched by the lawyers in california of Laeticia Smet. Or more exactly, by the manager of the trusts it controls. In this paper of nine pages that was provided Le Figaro , the widow asks permission to judges in california to switch to ten-seven properties of Johnny Hallyday in its trusts. In the list, in addition to Harley Davidson, cars collection, such as his Bentley, his Lamborghini and his Cobra, are precisely the famous royalties of Johnny.
According to several lawyers specializing in trusts interviewed by Le Figaro , if the royalties fall into these trusts, which are safes, the decision is irrevocable and the amounts of money games will escape never to Laura Smet, David Hallyday, but also to the tax authorities French. In other words, even if the elders of the rocker get a victory on the merits, it may only be symbolic. The majority of properties of the couple Hallyday, but also these royalties, would be out of reach.
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last spring, during a first injunction against Laeticia Hallyday, the lawyers of Laura Smet (those of David Hallyday arrived later in the procedure) had not included the royalty of the singer in the list of goods to freeze. They were focused on the rights of the author collected by the Sacem and any amounts owed by Decibel, the production company of the last tours of the rocker. They were wrong. Compared to the royalties, these amounts were insignificant and they are spotted too late.
justice has, however, acceded to their request by «freezing» the rights of the author of Johnny Hallyday but also the Savannah, his property in the Western side of paris and its share (50%) in the luxurious villa Jade in St Barth. In the clear: until the trial on the merits, or unless an agreement between Laeticia, Laura, and David, Laeticia Hallyday does not receive a penny of the Sacem, and a prohibition to sell the Savannah and the part of her husband in the villa Jade. It retains however the right to rent the villa Jade for amounts ranging from 45,000 to 145,000 euros per week.
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At the time, the lawyers of Laura Smet went to zero. They had no idea of the exact extent of the heritage of Johnny and Laeticia Hallyday. Having been forced to initiate the procedures in an emergency because of the hopelessness of their client, they have not had the time to realize that the royalties were the war chest of Johnny Hallyday. They did not know that Laeticia Hallyday was a multimillionaire even before the death of her husband.
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Since then, the advice of Laura Smet have made progress in their research. The american patent process initiated discreetly by Laeticia Hallyday this summer while negotiations with Laura Smet were in progress at Paris was the «stabbing». As the widow of the rocker is so comfortable, there’s no more of scruple about having and everything is good to force him to sit at the negotiating table. In Los Angeles, the next appointment on the switching of the royalties in the trusts is scheduled for January 22, 2019. In view of the twists and turns that multiply between Paris and Los Angeles, anything is possible at this hearing on Tuesday, November 27.
