MUMBAI: The Akshay Kumar starrer ‘Namaste England’ is in the news and for the wrong reason even before the commencement of its production.
Film and music production company T-Series has taken to court the film’s producers Mahesh Bhupathi, Virender Arora, Prerna Arora and Arjun N Kapoor for unfair business practices and has served them with a legal notice.
Bhupathi-owned, Blue Whale Motion Pictures (BWMP) in June 2015, had entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with T-Series, for jointly producing the movie, wherein monies exchanged hands. As per the MoU, T-Series would get exclusive music rights and become owners of the IP in ‘Namaste England’.
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However, T-Series learnt that the film with the same star cast and director was being produced by a third party on similar lines as agreed between BWMP and T-Series.
Lawyers from T- Series have alleged that BWMP cheated the company and entered into agreements with third for independently producing the film without informing them or without taking their consent. T-Series also has filed a criminal complaint against the producers on multiple counts including criminal breach of trust, breach of confidence, wrongful disclosure of confidential information, copyright infringement and cheating.
T-Series director Ajay Kapoor said, “We have a valid, subsisting and irrevocably binding MoU dated 10 June, 2015 wherein T-Series is co-producing the film ‘Namaste England’ as one of the owners in the IP of the film. Further, all rights in the music and audio visual of the said film has also been assigned in our favour. Any attempt by any party to circumvent and/or negate the said MoU or wriggle out of the contractual obligation shall tantamount to copyright infringement, fraud, unfair business practice, dishonestly misappropriating property, criminal breach of trust, cheating , breach of confidentiality and wrongful disclosure of confidential information.”
While Kapoor confirmed that the complaint has been filed before the Delhi Police Crime Branch, he declined to comment further on the issue.
