Legal News

A Sisterly Settlement: The Boncompagnis Bury the Hatchet

By Ashby Jones

To all those who have been losing sleep over the fate of Natasha and Tatiana Boncompagni, the sisters embroiled in a bitter copyright lawsuit over Tatiana’s forthcoming novel “Hedge Fund Wives”: It’s over. You can put away the Ambien.

That’s right, Les Soeurs Boncompagni have decided to settle the matter and retire the lawsuit. Whether any money changed hands is unclear, but, according to this filing, Natasha (pictured, left) has basically given up all her rights in “Hedge Fund Wives.” “The Defendant has announced to the Court that she is not a co-author of ‘Hedge Fund Wives’ and has no authorship or co-authorship rights to the work. The Defendant agrees to release any registered or pending copyrights that she has relating to ‘Hedge Fund Wives,’ and any domain names or other property relating to ‘Hedge Fund Wives’ or the Plaintiff’s first novel, ‘Gilding Lily.’ ”

In October, Tatiana (pictured, right), a former WSJ freelancer who’s married to Max Hoover (yes, that Hoover), filed this suit against her sister, claiming that Natasha is infringing Tatiana’s copyright in the book.

Among Tatiana’s chief complaints was her allegation that Natasha had been publishing portions of the book, which is slated for publication later this year, on two Web sites — hedgefundwives.com and hedgefundwives.net. Click here and here for earlier LB posts.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 30, 2009 (boomark / email).