Dubbed the “ultimate partnership betrayal,” Daryl Hall and John Oates have resolved their bitter legal feud.
Fighting since 2023 over Oates’ plans to sell his half of their joint venture to music publishing company Primary Wave, court filings reveal that the dispute has now been resolved, though no details of the agreement have been released, including whether or not the Primary Wave deal is going through.
The superstar duo’s relationship blew up publicly in November of 2023, when Daryl launched arbitration seeking to block John from selling his stake in Whole Oats Enterprises – including the band’s name and likeness rights as well as royalty income – to Primary Wave.
At the time Hall said he was “blindsided” by Oates’ plans, stating that he didn’t want to partner with Primary Wave because he disagreed with how the music company goes about exploiting intellectual property rights from the artists in its portfolio.
The legal filings also shed light on a larger creative “divorce” between Hall and Oates, with Hall claiming his former partner had recently become “adversarial and aggressive” and that they’d been talking about dissolving their touring company and other joint ventures.
Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, Hall & Oates enjoyed massive success. They broke up and reunited a number of times over the years, and were touring together as recently as 2022.
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Author: Saul Goode
Photo: Distributed by RCA Records – Public Domain