Slayer filed suit against Iceland's Secret Solstice Festival in 2019, a year after they played the event, seeking payment for their appearance, and nearly four years later the outstanding payment remains, due in part to a complex court situation.
Back in 2019, the band sued Solstice Productions for $133,000, which amounts to nearly 16 million in Icelandic krona. But there was some confusion at the time over who actually owed the band. According to Metal Sucks, the band's lawyer, Jon Gunnar Asbjornsson, had written a letter to the city about the matter and learned that in addition to not having paid the amount owed, they retained 20 percent of the band's income to pay for withholding tax."
Now, three years past the initial lawsuit filing, Iceland's Visir has offered an update on why the money remains unpaid. Within the update, it was revealed that the original festival owners were initially supposed to pay K2 Agency Limited, the company representing Slayer, but then went bankrupt and sold the festival to additional companies.
Back in 2019, it was reported that Live Events managing director Víkingur Heiðar Arnórsson stated that all debts would be settled. The district court upheld that Live Events would settle the debts, but the case was overturned in national court.
“With regard to K2’s claims for damages, the National Court pointed out that there was a final judgment that Friðrik Ólafsson should pay the financial claim. K2 had received legal storage in an apartment owned by Friðrik to secure the claim and demanded the forced sale of the apartment to enforce the claim," it was revealed. “Therefore, the court did not consider that the financial claim of the agency company could be paid by Friðrik. It would not be timely to demand that Guðmundur and the three companies make the payments. Therefore, Guðmundur and the clubs Live events, L events and Lifandi viðburðir were acquitted according to K2’s requirements at this time.”
So, with the courts acquitting the three companies that the debts were passed onto, there's a likelihood the band will not end up seeing the payment they're owed.
Slayer officially played their final concert on Nov. 30, 2019. But two-and-a-half years later, there still remains some unfinished business from their touring career that doesn't look like it's going to be settled.
