Relationships between EMI chief Elio Leoni-Sceti and his boss, Terra Firma’s Guy Hands have become so strained that record label insiders are suggesting Leoni-Sceti could be gone before the year’s out, The New York Post reports this morning.
Post writer Peter Lauria writes that multiple sources inside EMI or who have working relationships with the label said the friction centers on Ronn Werre, the recently named chief operating officer for EMI North America and Mexco.
According to two sources with knowledge of the situation, during contract renegotiations Hands directed Leoni-Sceti to make Werre a “take-it-or-leave-it” offer, figuring that the music industry is in such disarray that he would jump at any new deal. Werre not only rebuffed the offer, but also got himself a bigger job at rival Sony Music.
That so surprised and incensed Hands, Lauria writes, that sources said he told Leoni-Sceti to do whatever he had to do to get Werre back. Sources said Leoni-Sceti chafed at the directive, both because he was acting like a good foot soldier in carrying out Hands’ initial ill-conceived directive and also because he didn’t want to go back to a supposed underling with hat-in-hand.
However, as a result of the move, Sony Music slapped EMI and Werre with a breach-of-contract lawsuit, alleging that Were broke a signed three-year, $3 million contract to return to EMI. The story goes on to suggest that the whole episode is a tempest in a teapot and that the broohaha could be engineered to have Werre in the driver seat at EMI. Full story here
