Singer Seal loses payment battle with ex-manager

LONDON - British pop star Seal will have to pay his former manager commission of at least £500,000 pounds on earnings from his first two albums following a ruling in London's High Court.

Justice Charles Gray ruled the Grammy award-winning singer was contractually obliged to pay the commission - more than 10 years after they stopped working together.

The judge backed a claim by John Wadlow, who was Seal's manager until 1995, for further payments under management agreements made in 1990 and 1995.

Seal, whose hits include Kiss From a Rose and Crazy, was ordered to make an interim payment of £500,000 pounds ($1.5 million) by July 21.

Wadlow had sought up to £1 million pounds. A future court hearing will decide the full amount to be paid to him.

Earlier this month, Seal, 43, told the court he had seen Wadlow as a surrogate father but later felt that his ex-manager had "ripped him off".

Seal, whose real name is Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel, argued that Wadlow was not entitled to the commission, saying that the agreements between them were the result of undue influence and constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade.

He said his new manager had made him realise the effect of the agreements he had signed with Wadlow.

Seal said that in the five years after he parted company with Wadlow in 1995 he paid him US$4 million ($6.53 million), which he said was "in my book a substantial amount of money".

The singer announced this week that he and his German supermodel wife Heidi Klum, 33, were expecting their second child together. They married in Mexico in May 2005.

- REUTERS