The lawsuit filed by now former Slipknot percussionist Chris Fehn against the band in the Supreme Court of the State Of New York has been made available to view publicly online here. The suit was filed on March 13th, 2019 and in it Fehn accuses his Slipknot bandmates Corey Taylor and M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan of operating several business entities related to the band behind his back. Soon after word of the lawsuit went public, the band kicked Fehn out.
Several Slipknot-related business entities are named as defendants in the suit, including:
- Slipknot Incorporated
- Knot Merch LLC
- SK Productions, LLC
- SK Touring, Inc.
- Knot Touring LLC
Also named is the firm of the band’s business manager Rob Shore of Rob Shore & Associates, as well as Shore himself. Fehn‘s former Slipknot bandmates Corey Taylor and M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan are the only members of the band named as defendants in the suit.
According to the suit, Crahan and Taylor are considered the leaders of Slipknot with Fehn becoming a member of a general partnership that was established for the band’s business affairs back in 1998.
That entity was a partnership at will and Fehn alleges that he had trusted Crahan and Taylor to operate the partnership for the mutual benefit of all members within the partnership.
According to Fehn, three federally registered trademarks for the band were issued to this particular general partnership back in 1999. However, it is alleged in the suit that a separate entity dubbed Slipknot CA was formed in August of 2003 and that the band’s trademarks were applied for and issued to this entity as well. According to Fehn, he never agreed to have the trademarks assigned to the Slipknot CA entity.
The documents go on to state the band had generally operated their merchandising rights under a company by the name of Slipknot Merchandising, LLC, which was formed in August of 2000 and dissolved in August of 2013.
However, throughout the course of their career, several other entities (listed above as the defendants) were setup, having been created from the period of 1997 through to 2014. Fehn claims to have had no or limited knowledge that band (allegedly Taylor & Crahan) and their partners (allegedly Stone) had setup the other Slipknot-affiliated ventures. He alleges that these businesses earned revenue from the band’s marks and such without also compensating the band’s general partnership.
Fehn further goes on to also accuse Stone and his company, who appear to have been acting as a business manager for both Fehn and the band and several of its members, of enriching Taylor and Crahan‘s alleged ventures at the cost of compensation to Fehn and apparently the partnership.
For his part, Fehn is seeking an accounting of the entire business of the Slipknot partnership from inception to present, presumably to establish damages and any potential missing income. He is also seeking to impose a trust on the Slipknot trademarks that will benefit himself as well as the Slipknot partnership.
Taylor for himself told another user via Twitter earlier this week that he had been “wrongfully accused” of “stealing money” form someone he loved and cared about.
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