A Swedish appeals court has reinstated the lawsuit filed by Avicii‘s former manager against the late EDM icon’s estate, giving him a fresh shot at claims a lower court had thrown out earlier this year.Ad 0:00 Click for sound 0:00 / 0:00 The Svea Court of Appeal has found that a Stockholm District Court judge failed to perform a proper evaluation before dismissing the claims brought by Arash “Ash” Pournouri against the estate of Avicii, whose real name was Tim Bergling.
The appellate court has returned the case to the District Court for a new hearing.“The district court did not have the basis to — without first giving the appellants the opportunity to clarify their claim and without having clarified the defendants’ defense within the framework of a trial — take a position on the admissibility of the declaratory action,” reads the appeal ruling, translated from Swedish.
“Consequently, a procedural error occurred in the District Court.” Pournouri sued the estate in December, alleging its operators breached a non-disparagement clause in the 2016 contract that ended his eight-year management relationship with Bergling.Pournouri at the time challenged what he characterized as a distorted public narrative about his role in the DJ’s death by suicide, arguing that he was subjected to “character assassination” in the 2017 Netflix documentary Avicii: True Stories and in two subsequent authorized biographies.
According to Pournouri, those projects falsely suggested he drove Bergling to suicide by overworking him and pressuring him to keep performing through mental and physical health struggles.Judge Linda Rantén dismissed the suit in March, ruling that Pournouri had not met the technical requirements to seek a declaratory judgment over a breach of the 2016 termination agreement.
The appeals court found that determination came too soon.Its ruling stated that the District ...