Britain's Got Talent boss Simon Cowell is preparing to fight a High Court lawsuit over a £75 million business deal whose terms were allegedly written on a napkin and signed by the television mogul himself.
Cowell is being sued by his former adviser Ian Rosenblatt, who worked for the TV and music tycoon from 2018. Rosenblatt issued a writ in August, claiming that a fee arrangement agreed between the two men was never honoured. A judge has now given Cowell more time to prepare his defence, after the mogul's lawyers requested further information from his accuser. Cowell has until October to serve his response to London's High Court, setting up a blockbuster courtroom showdown between the formerly close associates.
According to court documents submitted by Rosenblatt, the pair met for dinner in London in October 2022 to settle their differences after a series of rows. During the meal, Rosenblatt says, Cowell offered him an attractive fee arrangement for a deal he was working on at the time. The documents state that the terms of that offer were written on a napkin which Cowell then signed. The arrangement is said to have offered Rosenblatt up to 15 per cent of any deal worth more than £75 million.
Rosenblatt claims the deal was later formalised at a meeting at Cowell's home in the Cotswolds in February 2023. But he says he was never paid, and he is now seeking millions of pounds in damages for breach of contract.
The court papers paint a colourful picture of the working relationship. Rosenblatt says it was very difficult to speak to Cowell because the mogul refuses to own a mobile phone, frequently changed his email addresses, and could often only be contacted through his fiancee Lauren Silverman, the mother of his son Eric. Cowell could also be extremely emotional, the papers allege, leading to rows, and sometimes deliberately excluded Rosenblatt from calls about budgets for his company Syco.
Cowell, one of the most successful figures in British television history, built his fortune as the creator of The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent and as a judge on American Idol. Syco, his entertainment company, signed some of the biggest-selling acts of the 2000s and 2010s, including One Direction and Leona Lewis. His personal fortune has been estimated in the hundreds of millions of pounds.
The case has drawn attention not only for its star power but for the napkin at its centre. English contract law does not require agreements to take any particular written form, and deals scribbled on napkins, beer mats and even the back of envelopes have been upheld by courts before, provided the essential terms are clear and there was an intention to create legal relations. Whether a dinner-table understanding over a meal between old colleagues meets that test will be for the High Court to decide. Neither side has commented publicly beyond the court filings, and the case is expected to proceed to trial next year.