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Daryl Hall has claimed he was "ambushed" by John Oates' "malicious conduct."

The 77-year-old singer has taken out a restraining order against his Hall + Oates bandmate and in new legal documents, he's slammed the 75-year-old musician's plans to sell his share of their joint business venture Whole Oats Enterprises LLP (WOE) to a third party and accused him of making moves at a time deliberately designed to cause "the most harm" to him.

In a first-person declaration obtained by People magazine, Daryl wrote: "This recent bad faith conduct by John Oates and the Oates Trust has created tremendous upheaval, harm, and difficulty in my life, not to mention unnecessary expense and burden, during a time when I am in the middle of a tour throughout the US West Coast, Japan, and Manilla and need to focus and perform at top level.

"I believe that John Oates timed the Unauthorized Transaction to create the most harm to me. Respectfully, he must be stopped from this latest wrongdoing and his malicious conduct reined in once and for all."

Daryl branded John's actions "completely clandestine" and in "bad faith" and admitted he felt "ambushed."

He continued: "His behaviour has become adversarial and aggressive instead of professional and courteous. He began making numerous demands upon me related to, among other things, the social media and trademark assets in WOE, creating disagreements brought to my door by a revolving cast of lawyers.

"It appears to me that John Oates’ intent has become to burden and harass me without regard to my interests as his business partner, or the interests of WOE."

In previously-revealed documents, Daryl argued John selling his share of the business would be a violation of an agreement they made in October 2021 over WOE.

He has initiated an arbitration process to prevent his badmate from transferring all of his right, title and interest in the company to Primary Wave Music - who have owned a significant interest in the duo's song catalogue for over 15 years - without his consent.

Daryl sought the restraining order against John in order to close to Primary Wave transaction in order to "maintain the status quo of WOE before there is a change in control of the partnership in violation of the terms of the Agreement.”