Michael Jackson - Michael Jackson: $17.5 Million Insurance Claim Dropped

Michael Jackson's former concert promoter AEG Live is withdrawing a $17.5 million insurance claim from 2009, reports Reuters. The sudden withdrawal comes in the light of some revealing e-mails.

When the Los Angeles Times leaked emails regarding AEG and Michael Jackson on September 2, the promoters could have been forgiven for kissing their $17.5m lawsuit goodbye, and in fact, they did in the end, but the Jackson estate reimbursed them for their concert-related losses. The leaked emails give an insight into the state of Jackson's wellbeing before his death: “MJ is locked in his room drunk and despondent. I trying to sober him up," read one of the emails, written by Randy Phillips, chief executive concert division AEG Live, who was despairing about the singer's condition. The recent information made available is said to have nothing to do with the reversal of the court case, and Paul Schriffer, an attorney for the underwriters at Lloyd's of London, had this to say: "We are standing by AEG's lawyers comments that the withdrawal of the claim was not related to the leaked emails."

The insurance dispute is one of two major court cases that have arisen from Jackson's death. The other is a ‘wrongful death’ lawsuit filed by the singer's mother, Katherine Jackson, in which she accuses the company of being responsible for medical decisions made by Murray. That case is scheduled for trial next year.