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Kanye’s VGT settles with sued Lloyd’s insurers

Kanye West’s Very Good Touring (VGT) company says it has settled “amicably” its legal complaint against Lloyd’s of London insurance brokers over an alleged US$10m in unpaid claims, after the suit was dismissed and all parties agreed to pay their own costs.

VGT last August sued several syndicates at Lloyd’s of London, the insurance market, for breach of contract after they refused to pay out for cancelled shows on his 2016 Saint Pablo tour. West called off the remainder of the North American tour on 21 November 2016, two days after cutting short a show in Sacramento and embarking on a 25-minute, apparently unscripted onstage rant praising Donald Trump and criticising Hillary Clinton, Jay Z, Beyoncé and Facebook. He was later admitted to a Los Angeles mental hospital, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, apparently suffering from exhaustion and sleep deprivation.

The suit alleged the five Lloyd’s insurers – Cathedral Syndicate 2010, Liberty Syndicate 4472, XL Catlin Syndicate 2003, Markel Syndicate 3000 and Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty – told West that “they may deny coverage of the claim on the unsupportable contention that use of marijuana by Kanye caused the medical condition”.

The insurers later hit back with a suit of their own, denying implying West’s use of cannabis “provides the sole basis” for their rejection of the claim, instead accusing his representatives of sabotaging their investigation, “contrary to the duties of cooperation VGT agreed to as a condition” of the policy.

“Substantial irregularities” in Kanye records, says counterclaim

Terms of the final settlement were not disclosed, although a California court order notes that both plaintiff and defendants will each bear “that party’s own attorney’s fees and costs”.

TMZ reports that “Lloyd’s [sic] folded under massive pressure by Kanye’s lawyers and agreed to pay most of what Kanye was due under the policy”, while VGT lawyer Howard King says in a statement the “dispute has been amicably resolved”.

 


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