I don't think Michael had a team during the negotiations part of TII.
He had Raymone Bain, Peter Lopez, Tohme and Hawk. Bain was fired before TII deal signed, Lopez was fired / left at February. So during all the negotiations happening (April - June period) he was left with Tohme and Hawk. Then Tohme got fired, brief period with Leonard Rowe and then Dileo came with limited powers and was in transition phase when Michael died. May brought back Barry Siegel as accountant, Michael Kane as business manager, Briget Segal for tour and June was when Joeal Katz and John Branca was back.
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Yes Katz is the one I was talking about. We were talking about the Murray contract, not TII. There was time to show the Murray contract to Michael's people, she sent the first draft around june 15th to Murray.
That's why I think AEG also took over the producer position and handled contracts and payroll with all the employees including the personal employees not limited to doctor but also including hair and make up, chef, vocal coach and so on.
That being said of course they could have prepared a contract between Murray and Michael but I don't think that was in their radar. I believe they thought they were producers and handling anyone and everyone related to the tour.
I would not consider the make up artist, vocal coach, etc as personal employes, they were tour employees, so AEG was doing their jobs hiring them. By the way, you were talking about comapring contracts, Karen's is on Panish website. It's completely different, I'm not sure it was done by Jorrie.
Kai Chase testified her contract would have been handled by AEG in London, at Carolwood she was paid by Michael, or better said not always paid by Michael, she had no contract with AEG for the april-june period. She filed a creditor's claim with the Estate.
But Jorrie did handle Murray's contract as a tour employee, sratching her head as to how to make it fir to a personal doctor.
Then the "at request of Michael" on the contract : he chose all the people who worked on TII. I don't know about their contracts, but Murray is in the same situation : Michael says hire Karen, AEG hires Karen, Michael says "I want Ortega", they hire Ortega. Michael says "I want Murray" they hire Murray. To me adding that and his signature just confirms that he chose the doctor, AEG did not choose Murray, and that Michael would have agreed to AEG employing his personal doctor.
The most interesting difference is the "perform services at the request of artist/producer" I guess : they agreed to change it, but one of the instances was left, and Murray signed it.
I agree it was not their job to do a Michael- Murray contract, it would have been a favor, same thing as firing Grace.
But then there's not much explanation for not sending the contract to Michael's people. I understand drafts being exchanged between Jorrie and Murray but when they thought that contract was in a final position it should have been sent to Wooley and Trell - to look over it for AEG and it must have been sent to Katz and Branca - to look over it for Michael.
That's what we were saying, yes. Was she relying on AEG to do that ? Possible, IMO. But they definitely should have seen it.
personally the ones that say if concerts cancelled / postponed, if you don't have licenses, if you can't show proof to work in US & UK is not problematic. firing when Michael says so is also okay, it is just that AEG will be the one to handle the firing process, the decision is Michael's in that situation.
the only thing is the first one and it actually covers both AEG and Murray. It's basically a very standard clause in contracts, giving both party the chance to get out of the contract if other party is not doing their obligations. for example if Murray wasn't paid, he could have said pay me in 5 days and if still not paid he could have walked away from the contract with no breach. That also gives AEG (and Michael) the protection to get rid of Murray if he can't perform. The only issue is that the determination of if Murray is fulfilling his obligations or not seems to be in AEG's power but yeah on the other hand the contract indeed is saying AEG is doing this on Michael's request and at his behalf.
The wording on that 1st clause says obligations "herunder" and under the praragraph all the termination possibilities are listed. That was confusing to me , I thought it could limit the termination possibilities.
If you are right, then AEG could have fired Murray for any reason, then I agree with you, that's problematic for AEG.
The fact that Michael had to go through AEG to fire Murray is problematic also, especially when you consider their habit of going without signature for a lot of important things (like 19 extra shows, production costs exceeding the limit). And it's not clear for Murray, it put him in an ambiguous position. That's where the 3 party contract becomes almost mandatory, if they wanted to do a contract with AEG in it, to specify each party's role : AEG pays, Michael deals with Murray on a day to day basis, fires Murray if he wants to, and then informs AEG. It would have helped a little with the who hired thing, & it would have been a little better generally, making it clear about any conflict of interest, and limiting AEG's role to a "mastercard" as was said.
EDIT : but then, they would have had to respect it, meaning not including Murray in meetings, not asking anything from him, not accepting a schedule from Murray, but from Michael instead.
