It’s true that $9.4 million isn’t the $30 million Jones wanted, but it’s also a lot more than the $400,000 the Michael Jackson estate claimed it owed Jones due to an “accounting error.” Despite this compromise, in a statement Jones expresses his satisfaction with the decision in much more than financial terms: The trial lasted three weeks, and the decision represents the culmination of a long legal fight by Jones to get what he felt he was entitled to in those long, fruitful hours in the recording studio with MJ. The Jackson estate’s attorneys were not as pleased with the decision, as you might imagine, issuing their own statement to the press: Michael Jackson estate attorney Howard Weitzman told Billboard before the decision was reached that they would go to appeal if Jones received a large amount of money, so it’s possible this long legal dispute isn’t over yet.
