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A high-court claim that had pitted the leading sports agent Jonathan Barnett against his former business partners, Olympic medallists John Regis and Jennifer Stoute, was withdrawn following an extraordinary three-year legal battle.
A partnership of which Barnett was a member, the sports agency Stellar Athletics LLP, pursued a claim against Regis and Stoute for £1.2m after they left the partnership in 2021. It was settled by the parent company, CAA Stellar, in April 2024, shortly after Barnett himself resigned from the company.
Speaking about the matter for the first time, Stoute described the case as “three years of torture”.
Stellar Athletics LLP, in court documents signed by Barnett, claimed it was owed £952,000 by Regis and Stoute for money they were alleged to have taken in excess of their profit share to cover costs incurred while working for the company for 20 years, plus around £300,000 in damages after the pair left and set up a rival agency, Astra Partners.
The Guardian can reveal the settlement was reached after Regis and Stoute found dozens of racist, sexist and homophobic text messages allegedly sent by other figures in sport to a phone number registered to Barnett. There is no suggestion Barnett sent or supported such messages himself.
The messages included dozens of offensive messages apparently sent to Barnett featuring supposed jokes about Africans, Muslims, Mexicans, Chinese and gay people, as well as one about wife beating.
Contacted by the Guardian, neither Barnett nor CAA Stellar commented on any aspect of the case or the reasons for the settlement.
Partners
Barnett founded the Stellar Group sports agency with David Manesseh in the 1990s. It grew into one of the biggest agencies in the world, primarily in football. Barnett personally negotiated Gareth Bale’s then-world-record £85m transfer from Tottenham to Real Madrid in 2013, and represented a host of other footballers including Ashley Cole, Ledley King and more recently Jack Grealish and Ivan Toney.
Regis, one of Britain’s most well-known sprinters, won a silver medal in the 4x100m relay at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and was awarded the MBE in 1994. Stoute won a bronze medal in the 4x400m relay at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and later became widely known as Rebel in the ITV show Gladiators. Regis and Stoute have two children together but are no longer a couple.
Regis and Stoute went into business with Barnett following their retirement from athletics. Stellar Athletics Limited was formed in 2001, but initially operated without contracts or formal written agreements between the parties. The agency represented many of the biggest names in British track and field, including Dwain Chambers, Phillips Idowu, Eilish McColgan and Laura Muir.
In their defence statement Regis and Stoute said there was “an agreement reached in 2000 that on the eventual sale of the larger Stellar business, both Mr Regis and Ms Stoute would receive a proportion of the proceeds of such a sale, albeit that no proportion was expressly agreed.”
In 2011 a limited liability partnership was incorporated, Stellar Athletics LLP, with Regis and Stoute retaining their 30% and 20% stakes from the previous company respectively.
Stellar contended that this cemented the agreement that Regis and Stoute were entitled to future profits from Stellar Athletics. Regis and Stoute say they were entitled to proceeds from an eventual sale of the larger Stellar business.
Sale and split
In 2020 Barnett’s Stellar Group was sold to American entertainment agency International Creative Management (ICM) for $100m (£76.5m). ICM is a Los Angeles-based film and entertainment agency who at the time represented A-listers including Samuel L Jackson, Jerry Seinfeld and Ellen DeGeneres, and NFL and NBA stars. Barnett stayed on after the sale as executive chairman of a new company, ICM Stellar Sports.
Regis and Stoute resigned from Stellar Athletics in June 2021 and took all the company’s 90 athletes to their new company, Astra Partners.
In September 2021 ICM Stellar Sports announced a merger with another Hollywood talent group, Creative Artists Agency (CAA). A deal worth a reported $750m (£573m) was finalised in 2022, to create a new company, CAA Stellar. Barnett was appointed executive chairman of CAA Stellar.
In October 2021 Regis and Stoute were sued by Stellar Athletics who accused them of conspiring to take the LLP’s business.
According to court documents, Regis and Stoute were accused of “taking all of the employees, consultants, clients and other assets of the LLP [Stellar Athletics] to a new vehicle” and “coordinating and carefully planning their resignations and the taking of the LLP’s business.”
They were also accused of “breach of contract, breach of the obligations, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of confidence and conspiracy”.
In addition, Stellar Athletics claimed they were owed £952,000 for money taken from Stellar Group during the previous 10 years over and above the agreed profit share. Stellar Athletics said that amounted to £247,000 by Regis and £705,000 by Stoute.
Stellar accepted that the terms of the LLP (limited liability partnership) permitted Regis and Stoute to overdraw beyond their combined 50% profit share, including money for their children’s school fees, but claimed such sums were repayable.
Regis and Stoute insist they were entitled to draw funds as salary, and to cover operating expenses. Their initial earnings when the business was set up were around £1,000 per month each, but increased over time, according to court documents.
Regis and Stoute’s defence refers to previous occasions when Stellar’s in-house accountant Peter Lazard “would irregularly mention to Mr Regis and Ms Stoute that they owed money to the company, including towards 2010 that they owed £900,000 or thereabouts”. Despite these conversations no repayment was made.
“The basis for the alleged debt was unclear to Mr Regis and Ms Stoute, was inconsistent with their conversations with Mr Barnett, and was never explained to them by anyone,” Regis and Stoute’s defence stated.
“No demands were made of them and instead they continued to be permitted to take the profits of Stellar Athletics Limited as their income and to pay school fees as previously agreed. In the event, Mr Regis and Ms Stoute understand that the alleged debts were ‘written off’, albeit it is disputed that they were actual debts due and owing by Mr Regis and Ms Stoute.
“It was agreed and understood that Mr Regis and Ms Stoute could continue to draw monies from the LLP, as they had done from Stellar Athletics Limited, and that they would have no obligation to repay the same. As such, as with Stellar Athletics Limited, Mr Regis and Ms Stoute were entitled to such drawings which constituted, in effect, guaranteed earnings.”
Regis and Stoute’s defence also claims that after reviewing the sums they were said to owe in Stellar’s 2020 accounts, the company’s accountant Melvin Gantz confirmed in writing that the money was not repayable.
It was also claimed that Barnett apologised to Stoute for demanding the repayments and his general treatment of the couple in December 2020.
“Knowing that he was in the wrong in terms of how he had treated Mr Regis and Ms Stoute, Mr Barnett apologised,” their statement says. “The defendants will rely, amongst other matters, on a WhatsApp message from Mr Barnett to Ms Stoute of 6 December 2020, in which Mr Barnett said, ‘I apologised. Either he [ie Mr Regis] has to accept my apology and we can get on with everything as before or he can take over stellar share and go on his own’.”
In reply, Stellar Athletics said Barnett apologised not because he felt he was in the wrong but because he realised that Regis was upset and wanted to move beyond that.
Regis and Stoute claim they entered the partnership with Barnett on the understanding that he was planning to sell the business, and that they would receive a share of the proceeds.
“In 2000 or thereabouts, it was agreed by Mr Barnett that on the eventual sale of the larger Stellar business by Mr Barnett and Mr Manasseh, Mr Regis and Ms Stoute would receive a proportion of the proceeds of such a sale,” their defence said. “It was on this basis that they agreed to work for Mr Barnett.”
Regis and Stoute claim they and other Stellar staff were not told about the sale to ICM until after it had taken place, and that they were not offered a share of the proceeds, according to court documents.
“Mr Regis and Ms Stoute were eventually told about the sale at a large zoom meeting in October 2020, at which several dozens of participants were present,” their defence states.
“Mr Regis was angry about the breach of trust on the part of the ICM Members in going ahead with the sale behind his and Ms Stoute’s back. The events detailed above, including the failure to honour the 2000 agreement by which they were to receive benefits, the secretive manner in which the sale was carried out, and/or the disrespectful manner in which the sale was belatedly announced to Mr Regis and Ms Stoute, caused Mr Regis and Ms Stoute concerns that they were not being treated fairly.
“The ICM Members were aware of Mr Regis and Ms Stoute’s concerns. In all the circumstances, the relationship of trust and confidence came to an end in or around November 2020.”
In response, Stellar Athletics denied that Regis and Stoute were entitled to a proportion of proceeds from the sale. Their reply to Regis and Stoute’s defences states: “there was no discussion of the ‘eventual sale’ of the ‘larger Stellar business.’”
Stellar Athletics also said that Stellar employees were informed about the ICM deal at the first opportunity, as “the sale of shares by Mr Barnett and Mr Manasseh was a commercially sensitive and confidential matter”.
Following the announcement of the sale, Regis and Stoute began making plans to leave the company, citing a breach of trust. They resigned to form Astra Partners in 2021 on the eve of the Tokyo Olympics.
Before they resigned Regis and Stoute had been asked to accept a lower percentage of future profits, which was declined, a point accepted by Stellar’s legal team in court documents.
“Among other proposals, including a continued 50-50 profit sharing, some of the options which were discussed were on the basis of a 70-30 split,” it states. “It is accepted that no agreement was reached.”
‘We just wanted it to go away’
Attempts to reach a negotiated settlement failed to result in an agreement. The case appeared to be heading to trial in 2024 until the chance discovery of racist and sexist material on an old phone registered to Barnett, which was in the possession of Stoute.
Barnett appears to have been the recipient of the messages, which were sent by two people, one a well-known sports figure and the other a football scout.
Regis and Stoute’s lawyers, Primas Law, wrote to Stellar’s legal team about the text messages in January 2024, saying they were considering disclosing them to the court as relevant to the case.
In February 2024 Barnett resigned from his position as executive chairman of CAA Stellar. The case was taken over by Los Angeles-based lawyers engaged by CAA, who in April 2024 agreed to withdraw the claim against Regis and Stoute. Both parties walked away from the case without admitting liability, and bore their own costs.
The agreement did not require either Stoute or Regis to sign a non-disclosure agreement, enabling them to discuss their experience of the case.
“For us it was three years of torture,” Stoute said. “When I first heard about the sale I thought it was amazing. I was happy for Jonathan, and I thought it was going to be amazing. I thought I would get my bus pass!
“But of course, none of that happened. And then all of a sudden, we went from expecting a payout, to allegedly owing this enormous amount of money. Instead of Jonathan giving us any sort of payback for the sale of the company, they made it look like we owed them. They sold the company [Stellar Group] for $100m [to ICM] and didn’t give us even give us a tissue. It was zero, not even anything.”
Regis said: “Most of Stellar’s agents weren’t interested in athletics, but Jonathan loved the sport, and appreciated its value to the business, particularly in America. The initial hook from Jonathan was that the company was going to be sold at some point, and when it did we would be entitled to profits from the sale, but that didn’t happen. And we ended up getting sued by Stellar.
“We entered negotiations with them in the end to see if we could come to some type of settlement, but that didn’t appear to be possible. We just wanted it to go away because it was costing us so much money in legal fees, and were relieved when CAA withdrew the claim.”
