The court battle over legal ownership of video footage of three members of Westlife has been settled out of court.
Full details of the settlement were not disclosed but it is known that the tapes will remain in a Sligo bank vault and will be promoted for sale by both parties in the case.
Up to sixty hours of footage of Shane Filan, Mark Feehily and Kian Egan before they joined Westlife was at the centre of this case. Streetwise Productions claimed they commissioned and were the legal owners of the footage. 22-year-old cameraman Ciaran Carty denied this, claiming that he shot it informally in 1997 as a friend of the boys who were then members of a boyband called IOU.
Carthy was sued by Streetwise but defended his claim to legal ownership of the tapes and was supported in court by Shane Filan who gave evidence on his behalf when the case opened on Tuesday.
The case was due to resume at Sligo Circuit Court today but negotiations lasting into the afternoon finally concluded with an out-of-court settlement presented to Judge Carroll Moran after four o'clock this afternoon.
There is a strict confidentiality clause attached to the settlement but it emerged that the tapes will continue to be held in a Sligo bank vault to which all parties will now have access.
A joint marketing strategy will be agreed upon for the sale of the tapes. Eddie Henry, solicitor for Streetwise, could not comment on whether or not there was an interested buyer on the scene at the moment but stated that both sides were very happy with the outcome.
