On Thursday, Apple Corps, the company that looks after the rights of the former Beatles, filed suit in the High Court in London and the Supreme Court in New York, after an audit of the record label's accounts allegedly found discrepancies.
"We have tried to reach a settlement through good faith negotiations and regret that our efforts have been in vain,” said Neil Aspinall, CEO of Apple Corps and the band’s former road manager. "Despite very clear provisions in our contracts, EMI persist in ignoring their obligations and duty to account fairly and with transparency.
"Apple and the Beatles are, once again, left with no choice but to sue EMI," he added, according to reports.
An EMI spokeswoman told Reuters, "Artists do sometimes request an audit of their record label's accounts, that's not unusual, but sometimes there are differences of opinion, especially when the contracts are large and complex, when you can get issues of contractual interpretation.”
This is not the first time that EMI and Apple Corps have been at odds. Apple Corps sued EMI, which owns the copyright in the Beatles recordings, in the late 70s, launching a legal dispute that finally settled out of court in 1989.