Photo Credit: Solen Feyissa
Eight months later, a federal court has officially acknowledged French Montana’s push to drop his breach of contract and unjust enrichment lawsuit against Triller as well as ex-CEO Bobby Sarnevesht.
The presiding judge just recently entered an order concerning the dismissal motion, with French Montana (real name Karim Kharbouch) having submitted the straightforward complaint this past September.
Admittedly, the case flew under the radar; also in September 2025, quite soon after the suit’s submission, Montana abruptly moved to voluntarily dismiss the action without prejudice. Fast forward to the current month, which the court began by recognizing the dismissal motion and the suit itself, both of which were “improperly filed,” according to the brief order.
The plaintiff therefore has until May 8th to refile the dismissal document. As for the concise suit itself, French Montana said the former Verzuz owner Triller had “promised” him a $250,000 payment – in stock if the company IPO’d during a contractually defined window and in cash if it didn’t do so – for an October 2023 performance.
As some know, this IPO didn’t materialize in 2023; Triller ultimately arrived on the public market as part of an October 2024 merger with Hong Kong’s AGBA Group Holding Limited.
In a nutshell, then, Montana maintained that he’d been unable to cash in on Triller shares and hadn’t received an equivalent cash payment, allegedly in violation of the contract. At the time of this writing, Triller didn’t appear to have commented publicly on the lawsuit’s end, and the company has reportedly been grappling with operational obstacles for a while now.
(Per SEC ownership disclosures, only one individual, seemingly a lead attorney with a Hong Kong-based law firm, has sold Triller stock as of late. On April 28th, the individual offloaded 500,000 shares for about $99,500, the filing shows.)
As for where those obstacles stand, Triller hasn’t quit its long-running fight to remain listed on NASDAQ, and it’s still staring down substantial liabilities.
Keeping the focus on the latter, Triller released its 2025 annual report in mid-April and therein acknowledged receiving a $1.56 million PPP loan in 2020. Said loan was forgiven in 2021 before “a final loan review decision” from the Small Business Administration last year capped the forgiveness at about $407,000.
“Triller may be required to repay the PPP Loan in its entirety and/or be subject to additional penalties and adverse publicity,” the company summed up.
Additionally, Triller indicated that it “did not generate any revenue from its social media or sports streaming business segments during the year.” Nevertheless, it also confirmed “outstanding obligations under prior music licensing agreements totalling approximately $30.0 million as of” 2025’s end.
It’s unclear whether that sizable figure includes the $2.55 million default judgment awarded to Merlin in November 2025. In any event, Triller is by its own description embroiled in “numerous” other lawsuits as well, among them a multimillion-dollar breach of contract complaint levied by the initially mentioned Sarnevesht.
