Coldplay settle lawsuit with former manager following high-profile legal battle
British musical titans Coldplay, who recently headlined Glastonbury Festival, have struck an agreement with their former manager, Dave Holmes, who sued the band last year following his dismissal.
After working together for 22 years, Holmes was dismissed from his position in 2022, leading to the former manager initiating a lawsuit and seeking £10 million in compensation from their forthcoming two albums. Those two records are still yet to be released, but Coldplay are set to share new LP, Moon Music, on October 4th.
In a lawsuit submitted by Holmes, he stated that he operated on a commission basis, earning a fee from the band’s income derived from record sales, tours, and other related projects. Holmes alleged that following the release of Music Of The Spheres, an agreement was effectively reached for managing Coldplay’s future tenth and eleventh albums.
This alleged arrangement was designed to extend his partnership with the band until the end of 2025, but the band claimed it was never finalised despite Holmes earning commission after brokering a lucrative three album deal for Coldplay with Parlophone Records in 2021.
A lawyer representing Holmes previously said of the: “Dave Holmes successfully managed Coldplay for more than 22 years, steering them to be one of the most successful bands in music history. Now, as the legal case shows, Coldplay is refusing to honour Dave’s management contract and pay him what he is owed.”
Before cutting ties entirely with Holmes, Coldplay offered him the role of ‘Head of Touring’ but they eventually withdrew the invitation before it came to fruition.
In response to Holmes’ lawsuit, Coldplay, who are now managed by Phil Harvey, countersued their former right-hand man for £14 million. They alleged Holmes took out a £16.3 million loan in 2015 at an interest rate of 2.72% a year and Coldplay claims he took out a second loan worth £8.1million in 2018 at the same level of interest rate.
They alleged his debt to Live Nation “potentially or actually [conflicted]” with his managerial duties, which included negotiating a deal with the promoters for Coldplay’s Music Of The Spheres world tour in 2021.
Coldplay also claimed Holmes was partly responsible for the “escalated” costs of the tour, which included spending £17.5 million on staging equipment which they were unable to use.
However, a spokesperson for Holmes rubbished these claims, telling The Sunday Times, “Coldplay know they are in trouble with their defence. Accusing Dave Holmes of non-existent ethical lapses and other made-up misconduct will not deflect from the real issue at hand — Coldplay had a contract with Dave, they are refusing to honour it and they need to pay Dave what they owe him.”
If a settlement wasn’t reached between the two parties, it would have headed to a trial. However, this situation has now been avoided as paperwork filed in London’s High Court in May shows Coldplay and Holmes reached an agreement on a seven-figure settlement.The full details of the agreement remain undisclosed and are set to remain private.
News of the settlement arrives after Coldplay headlined Glastonbury Festival for a historic fourth time on June 29th. In addition to delivering a career-spanning set, the band were also joined by an array of special guests including Little Simz, Victoria Canal, Laura Mvula, and most poignantly, Michael J Fox, who joined them to play ‘Fix You’.
In an Instagram post from June 30th, the 63-year-old Fox reflected on joining the ‘Yellow’ band on stage towards the latter stages of their set, calling it “fucking mind-blowing”. Captioning a collection of five photographs from the day, Fox wrote: “My team : Lauren, John and Jeff and Steve. Glastonbury all the love and thanks to the coldplay team who took such great care of us.”
He continued: “And many thanks to Chris, Will, Johnny, Guy and Phil. Oh yeah in case you were wondering…it was f*cking mind blowing. There is a time for every band and a band for every time. This is coldplay’s time. More pics to come.”
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