Courts must move really, really slowly in Brazil. Back in 1998, U2 played Brazil on their PopMart tour. In an interview two years later, frontman Bono and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. accused Brazilian promoter Franco Bruni of not paying them. And now, as the fan site @U2 points out, Brazilian courts have ordered Bono and Mullen to pay Bruni $1.5 million in damages.
According to the site, one of U2's managers later admitted that Bono and Mullen had made a mistake; they meant to accuse Bruni of not paying their authors' rights, not the actual money from the show. In 2011, a Brazilian court found Mullen guilty of libeling Bruni, while Bono was found innocent. But now, on appeal, the two of them have to get together to pay Bruni $5 million Brazilian, which translates to about $1.5 million American. Maybe the U2 members can appeal and drag it out for another decade or so.
