DJ Sara Landry Sues Ex-Managers for Allegedly Using Her Name After Split: ‘Betraying the Artist’

Dance music star Sara Landry is suing her former management company The Night Department (TND), claiming it “belligerently” continued using her intellectual property after she fired the firm last year for “betraying” her trust.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday (Oct. 6) and first reported by Billboard, the star DJ says she fired TND’s Matthew Verovkins and Harry Glaisher because the firm tried to “seize” control of her music rights and her Hekate Records label — but that it kept on using her trademarks even after she did so.

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“Defendants prioritized their own potential financial gain over the rights and wishes of Landry, betraying the artist that TND was obliged to serve at that time,” Landry’s attorneys write. “After TND’s termination, defendants have continued to prioritize their own potential financial gain by infringing plaintiff’s trademarks.”

The new case comes two months after The Night Department first sued Landry in U.K. court, claiming she had breached her contract by terminating the firm in August 2025. In that case, TND says it was transparent about her ownership rights and did nothing to justify the firing. Landry has filed her own counterclaims placing the blame on the firm, and the U.K. litigation remains pending.

TND and its attorney did not immediately return requests for comment on the new lawsuit on Tuesday.

In a statement to Billboard, Landry said: “Ownership and artists’ rights are deeply important to me, and I look forward to continuing to advocate for artists to have control over their work and their careers.” Her attorney, Nicholas Saady of the law firm Pryor Cashman, said his client had “spent years building her name, her label, and her career into something unmistakably her own.”

“They mean everything to her and to her fans,” Saady said. “Sara will protect them, without compromise.”

Landry, a superstar in the world of hard techno who’s helped popularize the genre in the U.S., signed a management deal with TND in 2023, with Verovkins as her senior manager and Glaisher as her day-to-day manager. But their relationship fell apart last summer, and Landry eventually signed on with Alicia Karlin’s ASK Management & Advisory.

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The U.K. lawsuit, filed in July, will ultimately decide the fate of that split. Court filings in that case show that Landry accused the firm of numerous breaches before terminating the deal, including having “attempted to strip [Landry] of her rights to her own music as well as her ownership and control of Hekate Records.” The company denied those claims in its court filings, arguing such terms were transparently laid out in contracts and that it was Landry who breached the deal by walking away.

The new case, filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, largely concerns what happened after that split, accusing the company of trademark infringement by continuing to hold themselves out as her reps: “Defendants used the [trademarks] to create the false impression to music-industry participants and other consumers that they were authorized to act on behalf of Hekate Records and Landry.”

But the new lawsuit still also touches on the core dispute between Landry and the management company: the factors that led to the split. On that front, she claims it was an effort to control her rights and profit from them beyond what they agreed to.

“Before TND’s termination, defendants also sought to take rights to Landry’s music and Landry’s record label,” her attorneys write. “Defendants sought to seize 50% ownership of Landry’s music and 50% ownership of Hekate Records, without appropriate payment to Landry and in defiance of Landry’s clear statements that she wanted to own her music and own her label.”

The lawsuit also claims that Landry’s managers “impaired her career” by failing to properly manage touring operations, including “delays, unresponsiveness, and inexperienced personnel,” and also botched the management of Hekate Records, causing other artists to complain to her.

In technical legal terms, the lawsuit accuses TND of violating federal and state trademark laws by using her trademarked name and logo without her permission. It does not specify how much the case is seeking in damages, but claims all “profits attributable to their unauthorized use of the marks.”