Chance the Rapper has won the last remaining claim in his legal fight with former manager Pat Corcoran.
A judge in Chicago has ordered Corcoran to hand over commissions he received from vendors supplying Chance’s merchandise business, and to give up the 15% management fee he earned on that business for the period covered by the ruling.
The ruling does not put a number on what Corcoran owes, but representatives for Chance say he is likely to forfeit as much as USD $1.5 million in management fees.
That would come on top of the vendor payments themselves, which Chance‘s team has described as “kickbacks.”
The 28-page ruling was issued on Tuesday (October 13) by Cook County Circuit Court Judge James E. Hanlon Jr., according to Rolling Stone and Billboard, both of which obtained copies.
Chance (real name Chancelor Bennett) had argued that Corcoran, as his manager, owed him a fiduciary duty: a legal obligation to put Chance’s interests ahead of his own and to tell him about any money he stood to make from Chance’s deals.
The judge found that Corcoran breached that duty in Chance‘s merchandise business.
In effect, Corcoran was paid twice on Chance‘s merch: once by Chance, through his management commission, and again by the vendors Chance was buying from.
According to Rolling Stone, the judge concluded that the merch business was where Corcoran’s conduct had actually cost Chance money.
In his own 2020 lawsuit against Chance, Corcoran had pointed to the merch operation as one of his main contributions to the artist’s career.
“Corcoran built the CTR [Chance the Rapper] merchandise operation from scratch,” Pat the Manager LLC‘s complaint stated. “Corcoran sourced the products and vendors, acquired the chanceraps.com website and financed the inventory.
“…The sale of CTR merchandise was a source of considerable revenue for Bennett as well as Corcoran, who was paid a 15% commission for selling it.”
Corcoran and Pat the Manager LLC have now been ordered to transfer ownership of the ChanceRaps.com domain to Chance within 14 days.
The judge found that Corcoran had registered the domain in his own name in 2013 and kept hold of it throughout the litigation.
The judge further found that Corcoran breached his duty of loyalty to Chance over a request for equity in UnitedMasters, according to a statement from Chance’s team.
As MBW reported in 2021, Chance’s countersuit alleged that Corcoran “threatened to kill” a proposed deal for Chance to become the public face of Steve Stoute‘s UnitedMasters unless Corcoran was offered the same compensation.
The same statement says the judge found that Corcoran had not been candid with Chance about two other ventures: the Ramova Theatre project in Chicago and We Are the Times. Chance himself was announced as a co-owner of the Ramova, a historic venue in the city’s Bridgeport neighborhood, in 2023.
The ruling did not go Chance‘s way on every point.
The judge rejected Chance’s bid for damages designed to punish Corcoran, and declined to strip him of all the pay he earned as Chance‘s manager.
That pay topped USD $10 million across Chance’s music, touring, and merch businesses over the period the ruling covers, according to Rolling Stone.
Outside his role as Chance’s manager, the judge found, Corcoran was free to pursue his own business interests and did not have to give Chance first refusal on every investment he was offered.
Billboard reported that this covered Corcoran’s side investments in a Chicago theater project, a media startup, and a film company. As a result, it said, the award will be smaller than the nearly USD $11 million Chance’s team had sought.
Judge Hanlon also questioned Corcoran’s reliability as a witness, writing that his testimony “changed with the audience,” according to Chance’s team.
The judge added that Corcoran had “a habit of saying whatever the moment requires.”
In a statement following the ruling, Chance said: “I’m grateful to finally close this chapter of my life and can’t wait to eventually tell my side of the story. I’m thankful to the courts and, more importantly, to God for remaining faithful.”
A spokesperson for Corcoran told Rolling Stone: “The court ruled there is no basis for Chance’s claim of more than $10 million in damages.
“We are pleased that the court agreed with Pat that he ‘performed years of valuable work that Bennett accepted and profited from, work that was not self-dealing.'”
Tuesday’s ruling follows a March jury trial at which Chance defeated Corcoran’s claim that he was owed USD $3.8 million in unpaid commissions.
That jury also sided with Chance on parts of his countersuit, awarding him just USD $35 in damages and recommending that Corcoran hand over the ChanceRaps.com domain.
Chance’s breach-of-fiduciary-duty claim was left for the judge to decide alone, based on evidence from the March trial and a second, non-jury trial in May.
Corcoran first sued Chance in November 2020, seven months after the rapper fired him and handed management duties to his father, Ken Bennett, and brother, Taylor Bennett.
Corcoran claimed that an unwritten 2013 agreement entitled him to 15% of the net profits from Chance’s recordings, merch, and touring companies, including for three years after the two parted ways.
Chance countersued in February 2021, seeking at least USD $1 million and accusing Corcoran of “diverting business opportunities to his separate companies, and demanding and accepting kickbacks as the ‘price’ of doing business” with him.
After the March verdict, Jay Scharkey, one of Corcoran’s lawyers, told MBW: “We respect the jury’s decision, but the message to music managers is clear: Get it in writing.
“The jury award of $35 speaks to how seriously the jury viewed Chance’s case.”
Corcoran managed Chance from 2012 until 2020, a period in which the rapper won three Grammy awards in 2017 without signing to a major label.Music Business Worldwide
