Dionne Warwick has filed a lawsuit against an artist rights firm, accusing the company of stealing “millions of dollars in royalty income.”
Artist Rights Enforcement Corp. first sued Warwick in December, alleging they were owed “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars” for work recovering the singer’s royalties. Their clearance of the “Walk On By” sample included in Doja Cat’s chart-topping “Paint the Town Red” was mentioned as a profitable transaction from which they have not been paid by Warwick.
On Monday, Warwick’s lawyers filed a countersuit, accusing AREC of being a “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” that only claims to help artists “fight to make your music yours again.” According to the singer’s team, AREC was “cloaking itself in professional credibility while concealing its own self-interest.”
Pitchfork has reached out to both Warwick’s representatives and AREC for further comment.
Warwick first got involved with AREC in 2001, when she needed help recovering royalties owed to her from early recordings mainly distributed by Scepter Records. That year, Warwick signed a one-page contract with AREC, which stated that she would be entitled to “an ongoing fifty (50%) percent of all sums and assets which are recovered.” The claim reports that Warwick was not represented by a lawyer at the time.
According to the countersuit, from 2002 through 2025, AREC collected and deposited into its own bank account “a 50% share of anything and everything that flowed as a result of her creative output from 1962 to 2001”—an amount reportedly unknown to Warwick. It wasn’t until September 2025, Warwick’s suit alleges, that she sought aid from the Davis Firm, which reportedly requested a complete set of files pertaining to Warwick from Gabin Ruben, Chief Executive Officer at AREC.
The complaint alleges the documents sent back did not adequately reflect the work the 23 years of service AREC provided to Warwick. In response, the Davis Firm sent a termination letter to AREC with a list of demands, including that AREC provide copies of all royalty statements relating to Warwick and that AREC no longer accept payments on her behalf.
According to the countersuit, AREC’s response to the termination notice was their 2025 lawsuit against Warwick. “Rather than addressing the reasonable demands made by Ms. Warwick’s counsel or offering any justification for its numerous defalcations, AREC instead chose to initiate this litigation against Ms. Warwick,” the counterclaim alleges.
The counterclaim also includes several other complaints, including breach of fiduciary duty, fraud by omission, and interference with prospective business relations. “When you strip away the illusion manufactured by AREC and expose the lie,” Warwick’s lawyers write, “AREC’s efforts were at best nothing more than administrative in nature, or activities that music lawyers routinely perform for an hourly fee.”
Warwick is currently working on her final album, DWuets. The projects features duets with Cynthia Erivo, Kehlani, and additional high-profile artists. The first single, “Ocean in the Desert,” arrives on March 20.
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