Writer Drags Melrose to Court over Alleged Breach of Contract

Matilda Omonaiye/

A Nigerian writer has asked a court in Ogun State to bring a publishing firm to book over an alleged breach of contract.

Melrose Books and Publishing Ltd, a global brand in publishing business got into the bad books of one of its writers, Mrs Dupe Olaoye-Osinkolu following an alleged breach of a contract signed seven years ago.

According to Olaoye-Osinkolu, Melrose is seeking refuge in legal technicalities to avoid responsibility for the contract it entered into.

In an Originating Summons, filed on her behalf by a Lagos State-based legal firm, Oluyinka Olujimi & Associates, Olaoye-Osinkolu had informed an Ota, Ogun State High Court that the company had since 2012 held onto her intellectual work, in flagrant breach of a contract it signed with her.

She told the court that sometime in 2012 the company published an advertorial in a leading national newspaper inviting people with educational children stories to submit them for consideration and eventual publication.

Believing in the integrity of the company as an international organization, the Claimant, like many other Nigerians, forwarded her story which the defendant considered good.

NewsmakersNG learnt that Melrose consequently invited her for negotiation and eventual signing of a contract, the terms of which include that she must not make the story available to any other publishing company, while it made financial pledges, including if it failed to publish the work.

Seven years on, the company has neither published the work nor compensated her, despite repeated demands for the return of her intellectual work, thus raising the fear that the book could have been published in another country under a fictitious name and title.

Determined to retrieve her manuscript and hoping that the court would stop foreigners from cheating Nigerian citizens, Olaoye-Osinkolu is seeking the following reliefs:

1.     A declaration that the Defendant’s failure, neglect and/or refusal to either publish or return the manuscript of the Claimant and/or pay compensation to the Claimant is wrongful and constitutes a breach of Agreement between both parties.

2.     A sum of N25 million (Twenty Five Million Naira) only as damages against the Defendant for the loss suffered by the Claimant on the account of not publishing/returning/compensating the Claimant as contained in the Agreement.

3.     A sum of N20 Million as compensation for the loss of another contract suffered by the Claimant on account of the Agreement binding the Defendant to the Claimant.

4.     Interest at the rate of 10% per annum from the date of judgment until judgment is satisfied as provided in the Rules of court.

Rather than affirm or deny the claim of the journalist, Melrose told the Court that it lacks jurisdiction to entertain the matter.

In a Preliminary Objection filed on its behalf by a law firm, Enitan Associates, the company is seeking refuge in a legal technicality that the suit was brought as an Originating Summons and not a Writ of Summons.

Originating summons are processes in which courts are asked to interpret statutes or agreements, while writs are for contentious matters.

“We will see how it ends. This is the same company that, on receiving our court summons pleaded for out of court settlement, and renewed pledges to publish the work. They even sent me a hurriedly designed purported book cover in which they misspelt my name. I, in contact with some other writers whose works they also obtained and refused to publish are waiting for Melrose Books and Publishing. Yet their contract binds us from making the works available to other publishers. We are waiting for them in court,” Olaoye-Osinkolu told NewsmakersNG.

The matter has been adjourned till April 9, 2019 for further hearing.