I want £750k... not a penny less!
Jeffrey Archer sues ex-agent for royalties
JEFFrEy archer is suing his former literary agent, claiming it owes him more than £750,000 in royalties and interest.
The bestselling author and life peer has accused agency Curtis Brown of failing to obtain the payments while it represented him for 17 years.
lord archer, 79, whose first novel, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny less, was published in 1976, split with the agency in March and says he has evidence he is owed £538,486, as well as more than £250,000 which would have accrued in interest over the years.
The former Tory MP and Conservative Party chairman has made a fortune from his books, which have sold around 300million copies worldwide.
Bestselling works involved in the dispute include The Sins of The Father and Best Kept Secret, as well as a 30th anniversary edition of his celebrated novel Kane and abel, published in 2009. It is also claimed that Curtis Brown failed to keep hold of more than 250 documents relating to his book deals with publisher Pan Macmillan. Curtis Brown says it ‘entirely rejects’ lord archer’s claim and intends to fight the allegations.
The agency started acting for lord archer in 2002 – months after he was jailed for four years for perjury and perverting the course of justice. His agent regularly visited him and negotiated a deal for the publication of three volumes of lord archer’s prison diaries, chronicling his spell behind bars.
In High Court papers obtained by the london Evening Standard, lord archer said that in 2018 he asked Mitchell rights Management (MrM) to run a ‘ reconciliation exercise’ to check he had received all the royalties he was owed from his work.
James ramsden QC, representing the peer, said: ‘It was not possible to complete that exercise because in excess of 250 documents, including royalty statements, are missing.’
He said the audit has identified ‘underpayments’ of ‘£538,486 since 2002, plus interest of over £250,000’.
Mr ramsden accused Curtis Brown of a ‘breach of duty’ because of ‘its apparent failure to retain documents relating to [lord archer] and failure to complete regular conciliation exercises has led to underpayments’.
He said the dispute led to lord archer quitting the agency and that he is now represented by MrM.
The peer claims that when he was signed by Curtis Brown in 2002 it was agreed that it would handle the finances and ‘be entitled to a sum equal to ten per cent’ from book deals.
a spokesman for Curtis Brown said: ‘We’re disappointed because we’ve had a successful relationship with Jeffrey for 17 years and have worked very hard for him, as we do for all our clients.
‘But we entirely reject this claim and will defend it robustly.’