Paris Jackson is asking a judge to reject a fee request of $109,219,648 submitted by John Branca, executor of her late father Michael Jackson’s estate, for work covering 2023 and 2024. In a motion filed on a Friday and obtained by Rolling Stone, she accuses Branca of “persistent incompetence.”
Alleged missed deadline
The motion states that Branca missed his own self-selected September 15 deadline to submit complete financial accountings for 2023 and 2024. According to the filing, the documents he submitted were either incomplete or “nothing more than a placeholder.” The request covers combined compensation for Branca, his lawyers, and his late co-executor, John McClain, who died in May at age 71.
Requested reduction
Jackson asks the court to reduce Branca’s compensation from 15 percent to 10 percent of the estate’s gross entertainment-related income. She also seeks to apply the reduction retroactively to 2003 and keep it in place until complete and accurate accountings are submitted through 2006.
A spokesperson for the Branca-led estate said in a statement: “It is an understatement to say that this motion is completely without merit.” The spokesperson said the executors waived executor compensation from the estate’s beginning and that they are paid a separate, court-ordered management fee for operating the Michael Jackson business.
Background
Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009, at his rented mansion in Los Angeles from an accidental overdose of propofol. Branca’s lawyers have credited him with transforming an estate that carried more than $500 million in debt into an enterprise valued at roughly $2 billion.
In an April 29 ruling in a separate matter, retired judge Mitchell Beckloff found that the estate had not demonstrated that $625,000 in bonuses paid to three estate lawyers were “just and reasonable based on the information provided.” Beckloff wrote that the bonus amounts “appear arbitrary.”
Source: Rolling Stone Music
