Seal ordered to pay his former manager £1m

The Grammy award-winning singer Seal must pay an estimated £1m to his former manager after losing an appeal against a High Court judgment.

Lord Justice Toulson, at the Court of Appeal, dismissed his challenge to aruling last June in favour of John Wadlow's claim for commission on earnings from his first two albums.

In the original case the 43-year-old performer, whose real name is Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel, argued that Mr Wadlow exercised "undue influence" over him. But the panel of three judges ruled yesterday that the management agreement signed by Seal entitled Mr Wadlow to commission from the albums.

The appeal judges also found that a settlement agreement signed by Seal in 1995 when he severed his links with Mr Wadlow also entitled his former manager to commission.

Seal argued that both agreements were not valid because his former manager had used "undue influence". Lord Justice Toulson said the terms agreed in the settlement were "not unreasonable or oppressive" from Seal's point of view.

The court heard how Seal, when he was an undiscovered 24-year-old, met Mr Wadlow, who was a partner in a recording studio business known as Beethoven Street Studios, in 1987. Their relationship continued until the agreement in March 1995, by which time Seal had achieved international "superstar" status. He released his first album in May 1991 and his second in May 1994 - both reached number one in the UK album chart. His hits include "Crazy" and "Kiss from a Rose".

Lord Justice Toulson said : "In my judgment the judge was entitled to conclude that the settlement agreement was properly to be regarded as an exercise of the appellant's [Seal's] free will and was therefore enforceable."

He added: "The continuing obligation to pay post-termination commission had to be taken in conjunction with other provisions of the agreement which included significant concessions by the respondent [Mr Wadlow]."

He ruled that, on top of future liability for royalties, Seal should also make a back payment of royalties due since June 1999, with £500,000 to be paid up front while the true figure was to be calculated. And he ordered that Seal should pay Mr Wadlow's legal costs, with £175,000 to be paid up front.

During the hearing last month Seal's counsel, Andrew George, had argued that the 1995 agreement was "infected" by the same undue influence which the judge found had been at work when Seal and Mr Wadlow signed the initial management agreement in 1990. He said: "The judge was wrong to conclude that the obligation to pay commission in perpetuity on the first two albums existed."

Giving evidence at the High Court last year, Seal told Mr Justice Gray: "My relationship with John was like he was a surrogate father to me. There was no reason to distrust him." But he said his new manager made him realise the effect of agreements he had signed with Mr Wadlow. He said it had come to his attention that he had been "unfairly treated and ripped off" and added that he did not want to have any further contact with Mr Wadlow.