THE IRISH director of a US auction house said yesterday he was shocked by reports that Michael Jackson’s management company was taking legal action to stop the firm auctioning off items from the star’s Neverland ranch.
Martin Nolan, executive director of Beverly Hills-based auction house Julien’s Auctions, said the company had no knowledge that MJJ Productions was taking the action until it received an e-mail about a potential lawsuit.
Mr Nolan said the company was hired by Jackson and MJJ Productions to clear the property from the Neverland ranch in August. The auction is set to take place from April 22nd to 25th in Beverly Hills, and highlights of the lot are being shown at the Newbridge Silverware Museum of Style Icons in Co Kildare.
The exhibition in Newbridge opens today and continues until March 21st.
However, legal papers filed in Los Angeles Superior Court claim Julien’s Auctions chief executive Darren Julien promised to send Jackson an inventory of sale items and said the star had not given permission to move all his belongings.
It maintains that many of the items taken by the auctioneers are “priceless and irreplaceable” and it describes the attempt to sell them as “malicious, fraudulent, extreme, outrageous and without any legal justification whatsoever”.
“It was a complete shock to us,” Mr Nolan said. “We don’t really understand, but we are willing to resolve this. We are happy to sit down with Michael. We have invited him to come to Newbridge to discuss what items he may want to still keep, which he has been doing since we started the project back in August.”
Mr Nolan said they had not yet been served with any documents and had not seen any papers yet.
The exhibition at Newbridge includes the white, crystal- encrusted glove Jackson wore in the Billie Jean and Thriller days, and a military-style coat he wore when he met Nelson Mandela.
