Adidas Battles With Kanye Over $75M, Cardi B’s Foe Files For Bankruptcy, Megan Thee Stallion Case & More of the Week’s Biggest Legal Stories
Written by djfrosty on May 30, 2023
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: A messy legal battle between Adidas and Kanye West spills into the open; a YouTuber who defamed Cardi B declares bankruptcy to avoid a $4 million judgment; prosecutors call for a harsh sentence against Tory Lanez over the Megan Thee Stallion shooting; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Adidas v. Kanye
Thanks to newly-unsealed court records, the messy legal fallout from Kanye West’s high-profile split with Adidas is now coming into view.
Federal court records obtained by Billboard last week show that Adidas launched private arbitration proceedings last fall, shortly after the company terminated its long-standing partnership with West and his Yeezy brand in the wake of the rapper’s antisemitic statements. As part of that case, the company secretly sought – and won – an “attachment” order from a federal judge, freezing $75 million in Adidas money that’s allegedly sitting in Yeezy bank accounts.
Secretly? Yes, this case is a treasure trove for legal procedure nerds. The case was not only filed under seal and kept that way for months, but also on a so-called ex parte basis — meaning the judge issued the freeze without giving West or Yeezy a chance to make counter-arguments, saying there was a risk the rapper would have moved the money if given advanced notice.
But now, the case is spilling into the open. In a ruling earlier this month that unsealed the record, the judge cited the fact that Kanye himself had once mentioned the litigation on social media. And in a ruling Friday, that same judge overturned the ex parte freeze entirely, saying Adidas had failed to meet procedural requirements and had “deprived” Yeezy of a fair chance to fight back.
In the wake of that order, lawyers for Adidas are currently scrambling, seeking to have a new freeze imposed on the company. We’ll update you when we know more, so stay tuned.
Other top stories…
MORE KANYE PROBLEMS – Adidas isn’t the only former business partner in litigation with West. The Gap filed a case earlier in the week, alleging the rapper made unapproved changes to a Los Angeles retail location that resulted in an expensive lawsuit from the building’s owner.
B*TCH BETTER HAVE MY MONEY? – Eighteen months after Cardi B won a $4 million defamation verdict over salacious claims made by a YouTube host named Tasha K, the gossip blogger filed for bankruptcy, saying she has less than $60,000 in total assets to pay out.
FETTY WAP GETS SIX YEARS – The “Trap Queen” star was ordered to spend six years in federal prison, after pleading guilty last year to federal drug charges. His attorneys had asked for only a five-year sentence; prosecutors wanted as many as nine, citing music that they said had helped “glamorize the drug trade.”
GENIUS v. GOOGLE AT SCOTUS – The Department of Justice urged the U.S. Supreme Court to avoid a case alleging Google stole millions of song lyrics from the music database Genius, calling it a “poor vehicle” for a high court showdown.
TORY LANEZ SENTENCE LOOMS – Los Angeles prosecutors asked a judge to impose a harsh sentence against rapper Tory Lanez after he was convicted last year of shooting Megan Thee Stallion, arguing he behaved with “indifference for human life” at a moment when Megan was “particularly vulnerable.”
GOOGLE FACES $32M PATENT VERDICT – A federal jury ordered the tech giant to pay Sonos the huge sum for infringing one of its smart speaker patents, awarding the smaller company $2.30 for each of the more than 14 million Google devices that were sold incorporating the patented technology.
MIGOS ALLEGED KILLER INDICTED – A Texas grand jury formally issued a murder indictment against Patrick Xavier Clark, the man who was arrested and charged last year in the slaying of Migos rapper TakeOff.