Britney Spears Felt Trapped. Her Business Manager Benefited.

Louise Taylor faces questions about whether she improperly enriched herself as the pop star’s business manager.

In early 2008, a small-time Tennessee company with big-time aspirations made a loan to Britney Spears’s father, who for years had struggled financially.

Less than a month later — after consulting with the owner of the company, Tri Star Sports & Entertainment Group — James P. Spears had his daughter placed into a conservatorship, a legal arrangement typically reserved for people unable to care for themselves or work. He would wield vast power over her life and finances.

Mr. Spears soon sent his daughter on a 97-show international tour. And he hired Tri Star, to whom he still owed at least $40,000, to manage Ms. Spears’s business.