Chance the Rapper has won the last claim in his legal fight with former manager Pat Corcoran, ending a battle that lasted nearly six years. Cook County Circuit Court Judge James E. Hanlon Jr. ruled Tuesday, October 13, that Corcoran breached his fiduciary duty to Chance in the merchandise business.
A fiduciary duty is a legal obligation to put another person’s interests ahead of your own and to tell them about any money you stand to make from their deals. Chance argued Corcoran owed him that as his manager, and the judge agreed Corcoran broke it where merch was concerned. In plain terms, Corcoran got paid twice. Chance paid him a 15% management commission on merch, and the vendors Chance bought from paid him too, in commissions Chance was never told about. Chance’s team calls those payments kickbacks.
Corcoran now has to give up the vendor commissions and forfeit, meaning surrender, the 15% fee he earned on merch for the period the ruling covers. The ruling does not put a dollar figure on any of it. Chance’s team says Corcoran is likely to lose as much as $1.5 million in management fees on top of the vendor money, and that number is their estimate, not an amount the court has set.
Corcoran and his company, Pat the Manager LLC, must also transfer ownership of ChanceRaps.com to Chance within 14 days. The judge found Corcoran registered the domain in his own name in 2013 and held onto it for the entire case. That detail stings because of how Corcoran described the merch business in his own 2020 lawsuit. The complaint said “Corcoran built the CTR merchandise operation from scratch,” and claimed he sourced the products and vendors, acquired the website and financed the inventory. Rolling Stone reports the judge concluded merch was where his conduct actually cost Chance money.
The ruling reaches past merch. According to a statement from Chance’s team, the judge found Corcoran breached his duty of loyalty over a request for equity in UnitedMasters, the company run by Steve Stoute. Chance’s 2021 countersuit alleged Corcoran “threatened to kill” a proposed deal for Chance to become the face of the company unless Corcoran got the same compensation. The judge also found Corcoran was not candid with Chance about two other ventures, the Ramova Theatre project in Chicago and We Are the Times.
Hanlon was blunt about Corcoran as a witness. He wrote that Corcoran’s testimony “changed with the audience” and that Corcoran had “a habit of saying whatever the moment requires.” The Source reports the judge relied on Chance’s testimony, documents, and independent witnesses to reach his findings.
It was not a clean sweep for Chance the Rapper. The judge rejected his request for punitive damages, which are damages meant to punish, and declined to strip Corcoran of all the pay he earned as manager. Rolling Stone reports that pay topped $10 million across Chance’s music, touring and merch businesses. The judge also found that outside his role as manager, Corcoran was free to chase his own business interests and did not have to offer Chance first shot at every investment. Billboard reports that covered Corcoran’s side investments in a Chicago theater project, a media startup and a film company, which is why the award will be smaller than the nearly $11 million Chance’s team wanted.
Corcoran’s camp is claiming its own piece of the ruling. A spokesperson told Rolling Stone the court found “no basis for Chance’s claim of more than $10 million in damages,” and said the judge agreed Corcoran did years of valuable work that was “not self-dealing.”
So why did it take nearly six years? Corcoran managed Chance from 2012 until April 2020, a stretch that included three Grammys in 2017 without a major label deal. Chance then fired him and handed management to his father and his brother Taylor Bennett. In November 2020, Corcoran sued, claiming an unwritten 2013 agreement entitled him to 15% of net profits from Chance’s recording, merch, and touring companies, including for three years after they split. A clause that keeps commissions flowing after a working relationship ends is called a sunset clause. Corcoran wanted $3.8 million, with $1.6 million tied to that clause. Chance countersued in February 2021 for at least $1 million, accusing Corcoran of steering business opportunities to his own companies and demanding kickbacks as the price of doing business.
The two cases did not reach a jury until March 2026. After a two and a half week trial, jurors ruled on March 20 that Corcoran had not proved he was owed his money, finding there was no sunset clause in his unwritten deal. They sided with Chance on parts of his countersuit but awarded him just $35 and recommended that Corcoran hand over the domain. “I claim victory in the name of the Lord,” Chance told reporters afterward. Corcoran’s lawyer Jay Scharkey said the message to music managers was “Get it in writing,” and argued the $35 showed how seriously jurors viewed Chance’s case.
That verdict still left one claim standing. The fiduciary duty claim was kept away from the jury and sent to a bench trial, which is a trial where a judge alone decides, held in May. Hanlon weighed the evidence from both trials and handed down his 28-page ruling months later. The claim that looked like leftover business in March turned out to carry the merch findings, the domain and the money.
Chance said in a statement that he is “grateful to finally close this chapter of my life.” He added that he can’t wait to eventually tell his side of the story, and thanked the courts and God for remaining faithful.
