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Trinity Street ceases trading, former directors expand litigation
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 17 February 2009
So, this is an interesting development. Trinity Street, a long-standing name in the world of music marketing, and more recently a leading name in artist-to-consumer e-commerce platforms, has announced it is to cease trading with immediate effect.
The board of Trinity Universal Holdings, which owned both Trinity Street and two sister e-commerce companies operating under the QED name, announced yesterday: “Following a difficult period of trading, and after assessing all of the options available, the board of directors has decided to appoint Trevor Binyon of Tenon Recovery who will arrange a smooth run-down of the business”.
Trinity Street going into administration is more interesting than most other music-company-succumbs-to-credit-crunch stories because yesterday’s announcement comes so soon after the filing of a lawsuit against the company by its former owners and directors David Robson and Andy Murray, who claimed they were pushed out of the firm in a boardroom coup at the end of last year.
Trinity Street had a long history of developing and delivering innovative and often direct-to-fan music marketing programmes, moving more into viral marketing and then e-commerce as the years went by. Robson and Murray acquired the company in 2004, expanding their operations in 2007 after doing a deal with music investment outfit Ingenious Media.
It seems to have been a falling out between Robson and Murray and their investors that led to their departure last December. They specifically named an Ingenious director, Sanjay Wadhwani, as a co-defendant in their lawsuit against Trinity Universal Holdings.
As that company officially went into administration yesterday, Robson and Murray quickly issued their own announcement telling reporters they were expanding their lawsuit to include Ingenious themselves as co-defendants, presumably because there is little to be gained in suing a company which will no longer exist by the time the case goes to court.
They also responded to the Trinity Universal board’s implications that the company was not performing well, and that that poor performance was behind the decision to fire Robson and Murray last year, and the subsequent decision to put the company into administration.
The poor performance, Robson and Murray argue, is a result of the actions of the board before and since they were kicked out of the company, and not a reflection of the company they had previously headed up.
Murray told CMU: “Since they engineered the removal of myself and David Robson from the company, the management installed by IMAC [Ingenious Media Active Capital] has failed to secure new business and allowed loyal, long-term clients to take their business elsewhere”.
“Before we were ousted, Trinity Street was a growing business with both long-term clients and significant new opportunities. Our lawyers await clarification as to exactly what happened on Friday [when the company ceased trading] but we will continue to vigorously pursue our High Court actions against those who we hold responsible”.
Among the music companies to utilise Trinity Street’s e-commerce solutions were EMI, Universal, Ministry of Sound and NME, while artists such as Robbie Williams, Snow Patrol and Oasis outsourced their online stores to the company. The managers of Oasis’s website said yesterday they were aware of the Trinity Street situation, and had quickly reengaged their old e-commerce partners Digital Stores to manage that bit of their site.
They said in statement: “Today we were notified that Trinity Street, the providers of the Oasisinet Online Store, have ceased trading. We have been able to set up a new store through Record Store, our previous online partner, so you may make any new purchases there. We are currently investigating any outstanding purchases/pre-orders and will ensure that these are honoured. This may take a little time so if you have made an order that you have not yet received, please do bear with us”.
