Banya Barabi Ordered to Pay Former Manager Millions After Arbitration Loss

Singer Banya Barabi has lost an arbitration case against his former manager, Or Marmelstein, and will have to pay millions of shekels, according to a report published Wednesday by Tzuf Zimring of TMI. The ruling, issued by arbitrator Dr. Alon Kaplan, ends four years of legal proceedings over how their professional relationship ended.

The dispute began after Barabi unilaterally ended his management agreement with Marmelstein before the contract officially expired. During the proceedings, Barabi argued that the management deal had been signed through deception, but Kaplan rejected that claim entirely. The arbitrator found that Barabi terminated the contract without a lawful justification and had actively worked against the agreement even before delivering the formal cancellation notice.

As a result, the arbitrator accepted most of the former manager’s claim and ordered Barabi to pay 3.4 million shekels in direct damages, plus another 950,000 shekels. Interest, indexation and legal costs are expected to increase the total further. Kaplan said in the ruling, “Barabi canceled the contract without justified reason and also worked against it before the notice of cancellation.”

Barabi did score a limited win on his counterclaim. Kaplan dismissed most of it, but accepted Barabi’s argument that there were accounting discrepancies in Marmelstein’s financial handling, and ordered the manager to return about 80,000 shekels to the singer. In response to Srugim, Marmelstein said, “Banya Barabi is a huge singer, I wish him that he meets another ray of sun like the song created during my time as his personal and artistic manager.”