Fifty Shades royalty lawsuit settled in Texas

A woman who claimed she was defrauded out of her portion of royalties for the sale of Fifty Shades of Grey has settled with her former business partner, lawyers announced on Friday (16th September). The figure of the settlement was not revealed. 

Pedroza and Hayward together set up the e-publishing business, The Writers Coffee Shop, two years before it originally released Fifty Shades of Grey (now published in the UK by Arrow) in 2011. Pedroza received a one-time payment of $100,000 when the Random House contract was signed in 2012, but had not been made fully aware of the full terms of the transaction.

In January a county judge in Texas ordered the defendent, Amanda Hayward, to set aside $11.5m to pay claimant Jennifer Pedroza following the decision of a Fort Worth jury in February 2015 that she was defrauded. Hayward appealed the ruling.

"I believe everyone is pleased," Mike Farris, an attorney for Pedroza, said of the settlement, reported Reuters.

David Keltner, a Texas-based attorney for Hayward, agreed:  He said: "It’s nice to have the whole thing resolved. The settlement puts an end to the disagreements they had."

The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy has sold more than 100m copies worldwide, according to publishers, and, according to Nielsen BookScan, the first in the series is the bestselling book in the UK since records began in 1998 after selling 4.7m copies; it also holds the record for the most consecutive weeks at number one, with 18 in the summer of 2012.

The film based on the first book, "Fifty Shades of Grey", took more than $570m, according to tracking site Box Office Mojo, and was Universal's highest grossing R-rated film ever. The adaptation of Fifty Shades Darker is due for release on 10th February 2017, for which Cornerstone recently released a 15-second teaser

 and a brand new one-sheet. 

The sequel to Grey, written from Christian Grey's perspective, is slated for 2017. EL James last week released two pages of sample material "in honour" of fictional character Anastasia Steele's 27th birthday, on 10th September.