Patricia L. Glaser

Singer Celine Dion found herself center stage in a labor dispute with her former longtime agent in 2020.

Glaser represented Rob Prinz and ICM partners, which claimed the singer failed to pay them a percentage of the more than $300 million in ticket sales from a Las Vegas residency and a summer tour.

The parties had reached a deal in 2017.

“She just apparently got up one day and said, ‘You know, you’ve negotiated this incredible, enormous deal for me, I don’t need you anymore,” Glaser said. “She just dismissed her agents. It doesn’t work that way, and I think the labor commissioner saw it our way.”

The matter was decided by the California Labor Commission.

“It’s effectively like an arbitration except arbiters frequently see their role is to sort of look at the equities of the situation,” Glaser said. “Labor commissioners are like judges. They look at what you present to them, and they look at the law, and they follow the law.”

The commission stated in its ruling that a valid agent contract was formed between the parties. International Creative Management Partners LLC v. Dion, TAC 53672 (Cal. Lab. Com.)

“Although the omnibus agreement is valued at a staggering half a billion dollars,” the ruling added, “the Labor Commissioner has dealt with similar matters, albeit not in this monetary range. In similar fact patterns, we have consistently applied the ruling stating, ‘[a] talent agency is generally entitled to receive post termination commissions for all employment secured by the agency prior to its termination.”

Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP attorney Zia Modabber said in news reports she plans on filing an appeal for a jury trial.

— Arin Mikailian