Every DJ who hands a manager 50% eventually asks what, exactly, that half covers. Sara Landry is now asking it in two courts at once.
On October 6, 2026, a company called Landry IP LLC filed suit in the Southern District of New York against The Night Department, the UK management firm that ran Landry's business from 2020, along with its principal Matthew Verovkins and day-to-day manager Harry Glaisher. The filing accuses the firm of continuing to trade on Landry's name and her label Hekate Records, including through music still moving via distributor Believe, after she cut ties in August 2025.
Why does a 50/50 split turn into a fight over ownership?
The Night Department got there first. In August 2026 it sued Landry in London, arguing she breached her management contract and owes close to £200,000 ($265,000) in unpaid commission built up before the split. The firm's position, per the UK filing, is that the 50/50 arrangement it struck with Landry covered copyrights as well as revenue, meaning it is owed a stake in the masters and in Hekate Records itself.
Landry's answer is that she terminated the relationship precisely because her managers tried to convert a revenue-sharing deal into an ownership claim. Her side says the 50% was always compensation for operational work, not a grant of co-ownership over music she wrote and a label she built.
Both sides agree there was a 50/50 split. They do not agree on what it was 50/50 of.
What does a public urination allegation have to do with any of this?
Tucked inside Landry's UK counterclaim is a detail that reads like a tabloid footnote but is doing real legal work: she alleges Glaisher, the manager handling her day-to-day business, publicly urinated inside the Coachella grounds in 2025, and that the incident harmed her reputation and the goodwill attached to her name and trademarks. The Night Department rejects the framing, saying it happened out of public sight on a private supply road with only two or three people nearby, and caused no damage at all.
It is a small episode next to the fight over masters and label ownership, but it signals how far this has escalated: a standard commission dispute has turned into parallel litigation on two continents, with reputational claims stacked on top of the copyright and trademark fight.
What happens to the music while this plays out?
Hekate Records keeps operating under Landry regardless of how the ownership question resolves; nothing in either filing suggests an injunction has frozen releases. The label's catalogue still runs through Believe. Landry's own next release, an album billed as Divine Intervention, is reportedly due the day after this piece goes up, timing that has nothing to do with the lawsuits but puts her back in headlines for music rather than litigation.
