The Pop Corporation

Daryl Hall got tongues wagging when it turned out there was a restraining order put on John Oates, and immediately, everyone thought it meant the kind of restraining order you put on someone when they’re stalking you. It fed into an unpleasant narrative of Hall being the showy narcissist, and Oates some pint-sized, beleaguered simp.

Legal things tend to be much more boring than that, and we’ve been doing the digging, and you guess it – it’s kinda boring, even if it is still somewhat sad.

The restraining order, basically, means ‘don’t text each other while we sort the initial bit of legal proceedings out‘. That’s pretty bog standard and not great for gossip.

This was always going to be about filthy lucre, and of course, Hall and Oates have sold a bazillion records, so there’s a good amount of money floating around. This concerns Whole Oates Enterprises LLP. Nice name that. And basically, Daryl Hall has sued John Oates because it looked like Oates wanted to sell his stake in the joint-venture, and that would violate a previous agreement.

Oates is on record saying he’s lost huge amounts of money in the past, and he’s wanting some financial security, seeing as he’s not selling wild amounts of records under his own name. It’s an easy payday. It’s perfectly understandable that he’d want to secure his retirement. Hall, presumably not wanting to go into business with anyone else, put the initial scuppers on it, and got a judge to temporarily block the sale while legal proceedings and a previously initiated arbitration continue.

Oates wanted to sell his share of Whole Oates Ents to Primary Wave IP Investment Management LLC (boring name), but now, an arbitrator has been thrown into the mix and they both wait to see if the judge extends the deadline of the case.

Now, Primary Wave Etc already have a stake in the duo’s backcat, and in 2021, Hall spoke about the disappointment of the sale of some of his songs to them. Looks like John wanted to sell a bit more, doesn’t it?

“Oh, in the early days, it got sold off for me and I didn’t get the money,” he said. Oates’ legal team have said that they entered into of ‘letter of intent’ with Primary Wave, and Hall’s team says: “thus, the entire Unauthorized Transaction is the product of an indisputable breach of contract.”

Anyway, Hall and Oates have had sticky legal problems with the group in the past, so it wouldn’t at all surprise us if this gets sorted (one way or the other) and they just straight up carrying on touring together.

After all, it’s just business.