•Click here to see a copy of the contract the Beatles were offered from ABKCO. Paul refused to sign.

•Allen Klein's records showed the Beatles earned £7.8 million between 6/62 and 12/68 not including songwriting. During the 19 months of Klein's involvement the Beatle earned £9 million with £8 million coming from record royalties. (McCabe).

•Judge Stamp stated: "I am satisfied that the financial situation is confused, uncertain, and inconclusive."

•Allen Klein renegotiated the Beatles contract with EMI as follows: The royalty rate went from 17 1/2% to 25% on U.S. sales. The Beatles were to do two albums per year as a group or individually. The Beatles would receive $0.58 per album until '72 when it would increase to $0.72. Reissues would be paid at a rate of $0.55 when it would increase to $0.72 (McCabe).

•Before 1966 the Beatles were getting 6 cents per sale. From 1966-69 it was 39 cents per sale.

•Judge Stamp stated that ABKCO charged 20% on the whole income coming to Apple and not the increase that Klein produced (McCabe).

•The legal affair with Allen Klein ended up going into receivership.

•The money that Klein made for the Beatles came largely from the selling of their shares of NEMS (McCabe).•Ringo: He tried to come in when Brian was there, just as a business manager, and not run our lives...Brian would have nothing to do with him".

•An Accountant who worked with Klein: You've heard lots of terrible stories about him, most of which I concur, but he was a tough American cookie, and he came over here and negotiated for the artists he was involved with".

•When John announced that he'd be leaving soon he agreed to not make it public knowledge because it might interfere with Allen Klein's negotiations with Capitol Records for a new royalty deal.

•The first phase of the Apple imbroglio took 10 years to clear up. Allan Klein, the sharp-talking American lawyer brought in by Lennon (much to McCartney's annoyance) to get rid of "the hustlers and spongers" who were buying houses and charging them to Apple's account, left his own troublesome legacy of financial mis-management. Klein was eventually condemned, in the High Court action McCartney instituted in 1971, for "lamentable" book-keeping. Lawsuits between Klein and Apple kept Aspinall busy through until 1977, by which time the individual Beatles were only speaking to each other occasionally, and not always in a friendly spirit. (The Sunday Times: The Culture: Section 10: 12 November, 1995, pages 4-5).

•Even Paul-who didn't want to trust Allen- had to applaud the cessation of all the embezzlements and fiddles. Suddenly it was beans-on-toast in the office kitchen instead of Beluga caviar from Fortnum and Mason (Clayson p. 145).

•Klein instructed EMI to pay approximately 1.3 million pounds in royalties that they were due to pay Nemerpor, who would then deduct 25% and pay the rest to The Beatles, directly to Apple. A settlement was eventually reached only after Triumph engaged a detective agency to investigate some of Klein's more dubious business dealings back in the US. The result was exactly what Triumph expected...Klein eventually negotiated a settlement that stipulated that Apple would pay Triumph 750,000 pounds in cash, plus 5% of the Beatles gross royalties earned between 1972 and 1976. Triumph would also get 25% of the royalties that were being held by EMI and 50,000 pounds for the shares of Subafilm that were owned by Nems (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 88).

•In exchange for Klein and his company, ABKCO, assuming management of The Beatles and Apple, Apple would pay for a London apartment for Klein and for "reasonable expenses" incurred by Klein and other ABKCO employees in the line of Apple and Beatles business. Klein would also receive 20% of the gross income earned by The Beatles and Apple during the period in which Klein was acting as manager. In addition to his base commission, if Klein were to renegotiate any existing deals on behalf of The Beatles, he would earn 20% of the gross income generated from the difference between the original royalty rate and the new royalty rate that Klein had negotiated (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 90).

• In addition to negotiating a greatly increased royalty rate for the Beatles (since early 1967 they had received, excluding publishing income, 39 cents per album-prior to 1967, they had only earned 6 cents per album) Klein also secured a piece of the action for Apple Records as part of the deal. The deal was quite inventive and it stipulated that EMI-who retained ownership of the Beatles master recordings- would grant Apple the right to manufacture and sell Beatle albums in the United States. Apple would then pay Capitol to manufacture the actual records (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 93).

•As John Eastman would later point out in a memo to The Beatles, the figure that Klein paid to free The Beatles from Nemperor far exceeded the original one-million pound deal that Eastman had negotiated with Clive Epstein several months earlier (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 88).

•Once the smoke had cleared, it was obvious that Klein had negotiated an exceptionally lucrative deal for himself. Peter Brown admits that he had no idea of why The Beatles would offer Klein such generous compensation: "They had no idea how to negotiate. I don't know where their heads were" (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 89).

•Even Apple Records was cut under Klein with contracts not renewed and releases cancelled.

•On behalf of the Beatles and their company, Apple Corps, their business manager Allen Klein of ABKCO Industries, after discussion with the Beatles, announced in New York today that all negotiations between the Beatles, Associated Television, and Northern Songs have been terminated by the Beatles. All of the Beatles and their companies intend to sell their shares in Northern Songs to Associated television at a price in accordance with the terms laid down by the takeover panel. John Lennon and Paul McCartney have no intention of involving themselves in any further relationship with Northern Songs or Associated Television beyond the fulfillment of their songwriting contract to February 1973. The Beatles intend to keep all their rights with their own company, Apple, which has divisions in records, music, publishing, motion pictures and television. After discussions with the Beatles' solicitors and after taking advice of counsel, the writ served upon Northern Songs by the Beatles-owned Maclen Company will not be withdrawn and a statement of claim will be served within the next few days.

•Better Economy. From the Danish magazine "Vi Unge" (We Young) march. 1970
Economically the future seems brighter for The Beatles. Their finances will in the future be taken care of by the Jewish businessman Allen Klein, who used to take care of The Stones finances. On the creative site, the only one to keep Apple going is Paul McCartney, the man behind two of the biggest hits around at the time, Come And Get It, with Badfinger, and Temma Habour with Mary Hopkin. Allen Klein gets 20% of all the Beatles' income, but McCartney thinks he's worth it.

•John: Klein knew me quite well, without even meeting me. Also he knew to come to me and not to Paul. Whereas someone like Lew Grade or Eastman would have gone to Paul (McCabe/Schonfeld, p. 43. For the Record).

•John: So to get in he [Klein] knew he'd have to go through me. Mind you, he'd been sounding out Mick Jagger and Keith, and all them, saying, "Who runs what?" (McCabe/Schonfeld, p. 43. For the Record).

• The interesting things was that within weeks of them signing with Klein, there was Mick Jagger appearing. My first encounter with Mick was when he came breathlessly into the Beatles' room to talk to John, to tell him, "Don't sign man, 'cause we're suing him", but it was too late, they had already signed (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 94).

•Pete Bennett: Paul McCartney hated the strings on Let It Be, and he didn't want Phil Spector producing the album. Paul complained to us, but we put it out anyhow. It wasn't even Klein's doing...We put it out because John Lennon wanted it out. You have to understand that Lennon was Director of Apple Records. Lennon had the last say, and for whatever reason, they made Lennon the president when they set up Apple (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 130).

John Kosh: I got on very well with Allen Klein, he was very good to me. He was very appreciative of what I was doing and very flattering. United Artists had no intention of ever letting that book [Get Back album book] come out (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 103).

• Asher made several attempts to determine [James} Taylor's status at Apple. Unable to get any commitment or definite answer, Asher went ahead and signed James Taylor to Warner Brothers Records. For the time being, no one at Apple seemed to notice or care that Asher and Taylor had simply walked away. Peter Asher: "I consequently heard that Allen really was going to sue us and that The Beatles talked him out of it...I don't know that for a fact, but I think George told me, 'Oh no, Allen was going to do something,' but then he and Paul said, 'Oh no, this is not how we wish to be perceived. If an artist is unhappy and wants to go, let them go.' So in that sense I may indeed owe George and Paul a debt" (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 98).

• Out of all the Apple departments that were cut by Klein, his decision to effectively close down Apple Publishing made the least sense from a business perspective...Apple also held the European publishing rights for several promising American acts, including the Steve Miller Band...Although Apple Publishing was a large department with a staff that ranged from five to seven people, it was one of the few Apple divisions that saw any return on Apple's investment. According to Mike O'Connor, Apple was ready to sign UK publishing agreements with both Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson when Klein shut the department down (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 98).

•LIFE MAGAZINE. Vol. 70 no. 14 April 16, 1971. Listen, it's not the boys. It's not the other three. The four of us, I think, still quite like each other. I don't think there is bad blood, not from my side anyway. I spoke to the others quite recently and there didn't sound like any from theirs. So it's a business thing. It's Allen Klein. Early in '69 John took him on as business manager and wanted the rest of us to do it too. That was just the irreconcilable difference between us. Klein is incredible. He's New York. He'll say "Waddaya want? I'll buy it for you." I guess there's a lot I really don't want to say about this, but it will come out because we had to sort of document the stuff for this case. We had to go and fight - which I didn't want, really.

•Can you imagine? He has to be a genius to make money. He was a penniless orphan (McCabe/Schonfeld, p. 41. For the Record).

Interviewer: Aren't you really saying that he [Klein] can only see the dollar signs?
Yoko: Right.
John: That's what it is.
(McCabe/Schonfeld, p. 50. For the Record).

•Nat Weiss: I had lunch with Klein and his cronies just prior to his takeover at Apple. I knew he was going to succeed. He had to. His timing was so good. He was like Mussolini making the trains run on time. Klein is a creature of instinct, who likes to intimidate you, just to see how far he can go. George keeps telling me how great Klein is because he's made him all this money. I just told him not trying to bother to sell Klein to me (McCabe and Schonfeld. Apple to the Core. p. 133).