Legal News
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Just days before a trial is set to kick off in Los Angeles over whether Tory Lanez shot Megan Thee Stallion, prosecutors are adding a third felony count to the charges against the R&B singer.
With jury selection for the trial already underway this week, the L.A. district attorney’s office on Monday (Dec. 5) added a new count of discharging a firearm with gross negligence. Lanez (real name Daystar Peterson) was already facing one count of assault with a firearm and another gun possession charge.
Lanez was already facing 22 years in prison over the original charges. It’s unclear if that maximum sentence would be larger if Lanez is convicted on all three counts, but the new charge by itself could still carry a years-long sentence and gives prosecutors another avenue to win a conviction if the more serious charges don’t stick.
George Mgdesyan, Lanez’s lead attorney in the case, did not immediately return a request for comment on the new charge. Beyond confirming the new count, prosecutors declined to comment, including on why the new charge was filed.
Lanez was charged in October 2020 over the July 2020 incident, in which he allegedly shot Stallion in the foot during an argument after a pool party in the Hollywood Hills. Stallion had initially told police officers that she cut her foot stepping on broken glass, but days later revealed that she had suffered a gunshot wound. After media outlets reported that Lanez had fired the gun, Stallion directly accused him in an August 2020 Instagram video.
Lanez pleaded not guilty in November 2020. At a December 2021 hearing, a Los Angeles judge allowed the case to move forward to a trial. During that hearing, a police detective testified that Stallion had told him that Lanez yelled “Dance, bitch!” as he opened fire around her feet, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Jury selection kicked off on Monday and opening statements are set for Dec. 12, with a verdict expected by Christmas. Stallion herself is expected to testify at some point during the trial; it’s unclear whether Lanez will take the stand himself.
For the past few months, Lanez had been under house arrest after an incident in September during which he allegedly assaulted singer August Alsina in Chicago. But on Monday, over protests from prosecutors, Judge David Herriford released him so that he could better prepare with attorneys for the trial.
Just days after Atlantic Records and the estate of its late co-founder Ahmet Ertegun were hit with a sexual assault lawsuit filed by a former employee, the entities are now facing a second complaint detailing similar allegations of abuse –– only this one casts a wider net.
On Sunday (Dec. 4), Dorothy Carvello – a former A&R executive with the label and author of music-industry expose Anything for a Hit – filed suit against Atlantic, the label’s parent company Warner Music Group, Ertegun’s estate, former Atlantic co-CEO & co-chairman Doug Morris and former chairman and CEO Jason Flom. In the exhaustive complaint, Carvello alleges she was “horrifically sexually assaulted” by Ertegun and Morris and that Atlantic, WMG and Flom (then an Atlantic vp) enabled the abuse.
“During her employment at Atlantic Records from 1987 through 1990, Ms. Carvello was subjected to persistent and pervasive nonconsensual and forcible sexual contact, degrading sexual innuendo and insults, and outrageous ‘tasks’ for the sexual gratification of executives at Atlantic Records,” reads the complaint, which was filed in New York Supreme Court. “These injuries inflicted and abetted by Defendants include several sexual assaults and batteries, among other sexual misconduct, harassment, and discrimination, as well as intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.”
The complaint goes on to claim that her treatment at the hands of Ertegun (who died in 2006) and Morris was enabled by the other defendants, who went about “creating, maintaining, and perpetuating the toxic workplace culture in which such sexual assault was permitted, thereby inflicting extensive emotional distress as well.”
Carvello’s lawsuit was made possible by New York’s Adult Survivors Act (ASA), which created a one-year period beginning Nov. 24, 2022, allowing alleged victims of abuse to take legal action against their perpetrators in the state even if the statute of limitations on their claims had expired. Jan Roeg. the former Atlantic talent scout who filed the sexual misconduct suit against Atlantic and Ertegun’s estate last week. took action under the same law. More music industry cases are also expected to be filed under the ASA over the next year.
The claims by Carvello are not new, though this is the first she’s sued over her allegations. In her memoir Anything for a Hit (now being adapted for a docuseries), the former executive detailed how, while working as Ertegun’s assistant and later as Atlantic’s first female A&R executive, she was allegedly frequently sexually abused and harassed by Ertegun.
The new lawsuit covers much of the same ground, charging that Ertegun, along with Morris and other Atlantic executives, “treated the company, its corporate headquarters, recording studios, and—even its corporate helicopter—as places to indulge their sexual desires. Employees like Ms. Carvello were the collateral damage of this toxic workplace culture.” It goes on to allege that when Ertegun and Morris’ abusive behavior was reported within the company, victims were “routinely paid settlements with corporate funds in exchange for signed non-disclosure agreements.”
Carvello, who was hired by Atlantic in April 1987 at age 24, first worked as Ertegun’s secretary but claims she also provided significant assistance to Morris during that time. After bringing Skid Row to Atlantic, Carvello was promoted to an A&R role.
Throughout her time there, Carvello claims that she and other female employees “were routinely exposed to Mr. Ertegun masturbating, including during work as he dictated correspondence to Ms. Carvello.” Among other claims, she also alleges Ertegun stored sex toys in her office cabinet without her consent; that Ertegun and other executives watched pornography in the office, including in meetings; and that Ertegun once directed Carvello to pick up used sex toys in his office and wash them.
The complaint goes on to allege a number of other abusive incidents involving Ertegun, including a claim that he “sexually attacked” her in a nightclub in Allentown, Pa., during a Skid Row concert and again during a subsequent helicopter ride back to New York City.
In the course of these alleged ncidents, Carvello says that Ertegun “grabbed and squeezed” her breasts, “clawed at the bike shorts she was wearing under her skirt and pulled them down to access her underwear, scratched the left side of her abdomen and caused her to bleed, violently attempted to remove her underwear, bruised her, and exposed her vagina to all and sundry.” She further alleges that while begging for help from Flom and others present during the attacks, “they simply looked on and laughed.” Ertegun additionally claims that Ertegun once fractured her forearm after slamming it forcefully onto a table.
Carvello also claims harassment and abuse at the hands of Morris, who was running the label with Ertegun at the time. While working as his de facto secretary, she claims Morris would “forcibly kiss” her on the face and touch her inappropriately on a daily basis while “constantly” commenting on her body and appearance. She also claims that on multiple occasions, both Morris and Ertegun would suggest that Atlantic would pay for her to get breast augmentation surgery.
In addition to claims that Flom enabled Ertegun and Morris’ abuse, Carvello accuses the then-vp of harassing her during a meeting, saying he requested, in front of other executives, that she sit on his lap. According to the lawsuit, she says this incident led her to write a memo to Morris complaining about the “blatant sexual abuse” at Atlantic headquarters in September 1990 and asking him what he was planning to do about it. One day later, she alleges, she was fired.
Though she was subsequently hired at WMG imprint Giant Records, Carvello claims Morris “was not done retaliating” against her and had her fired from Giant as well. “Her loss of two consecutive jobs and the damage to her reputation was permanent,” the complaint reads. “But for Mr. Morris’ vengeful and retaliatory actions, Ms. Carvello would still be working in the music industry, and likely would be working under the WMG umbrella with [now-CEO and chairman Craig] Kallman,” who Carvello claims she was instrumental in bringing to the label in the early 1990s.
Later in the complaint, Carvello alleges that in February 1998, while unexpectedly seated next to Ertegun at Clive Davis’ annual “Grammy Eve” party at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the executive continued his pattern of abuse. During that incident, Carvello alleges Ertegun “shoved his hand between” her legs and “forcibly pulled and ripped at her underwear, injuring” her vagina. After allegedly fighting him off and threatening him “in full view of the dinner guests” at the event, Carvello claims Ertegun “sought her out again” at the same event and told her to meet him at his hotel, The Peninsula.
Carvello is suing on seven counts: battery constituting forcible touching (against the Ertegun estate, Morris, WMG and Atlantic); battery constituting sexual abuse (against the Ertegun estate, Morris, WMG and Atlantic); attempted battery constituting forcible touching (against Flom, WMG and Atlantic); battery constituting sexually motivated felony (against the Ertegun estate, WMG and Atlantic); and, against all defendants, criminal and civil conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress. She is asking for monetary compensation as well as exemplary and punitive damages “in an amount to be determined at trial.”
In a statement to Billboard, a Warner Music Group spokesperson said that the company and Atlantic “take allegations of misconduct very seriously,” while stressing that Carvello’s allegations stem from an era decades in the label’s past.
“These allegations date back 35 years, to before WMG was a standalone company,” the statement reads. “We are speaking with people who were there at the time, taking into consideration that many key individuals are deceased or into their 80s and 90s. To ensure a safe, equitable, and inclusive working environment, we have a comprehensive Code of Conduct, and mandatory workplace training, to which all of our employees must adhere. We regularly evaluate how we can evolve our policies to ensure our work environment is free from discrimination and harassment.”
Representatives for Morris and Flom did not immediately respond to Billboard’s requests for comment. A representative for Ertegun’s estate could not be located for comment.
Over the past several years, Carvello has been a relentless voice calling for accountability in the music industry over what she alleges are longstanding patterns of abuse and attempts to silence victims. In October 2021, she revealed she had purchased shares in all three major record companies — UMG, WMG and Sony Music Entertainment’s parent company, Sony Inc.) — with the intent of becoming an activist shareholder “to bring more transparency to the music industry,” she told Billboard at the time.
This past September, Carvello stepped up her efforts by sending a letter to board members at WMG requesting records relating to the company’s investigations into previously reported sexual misconduct claims and royalties accounting. She noted at the time that she intends to ask questions of the other labels as well, though there are differing regulations and laws that pertain to Universal and Sony, given that the former is a publicly-traded company in Amsterdam and Sony is incorporated in Japan; only WMG is a publicly-traded company in the U.S.
In the years since her ill-fated stints at Atlantic and Giant Records, Carvello has worked as an independent public relations consultant, including for some major label executives, though — responding to a perception by some label insiders that this represents a conflict of interest given her activist work– she claims she was paid out of the executives’ own pockets and not by the record labels themselves. In April, she founded the Face the Music Now Foundation, an organization “established to highlight sexual abuse and harassment in the music industry, demand accountability and change, and pave the way for survivors to tell their stories and reclaim their lives,” according to a press release.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The man who shot Lady Gaga’s dog walker and stole her French bulldogs last year took a plea deal and was sentenced to 21 years in prison on Monday (Dec. 5), officials said.
The Lady Gaga connection was a coincidence, authorities have said. The motive was the value of the French bulldogs, a breed that can run into the thousands of dollars, and detectives do not believe the thieves knew the dogs belonged to the musician.
James Howard Jackson, one of three men and two accomplices who participated in the violent robbery, pleaded no contest to one count of attempted murder, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Jackson and others drove around Hollywood, the city of West Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley on Feb. 24, 2021 “looking for French bulldogs,” prosecutors said previously. They found Lady Gaga’s dog walker, Ryan Fischer, with the pop star’s three pets.
Jackson shot Fischer during the robbery, during which two of the dogs were taken. A nearby doorbell camera recorded the dog walker screaming “Oh, my God! I’ve been shot!” and “Help me!” and “I’m bleeding out from my chest!”
Fischer later called the violence a “very close call with death” in social media posts. The dogs were returned several days later by a woman who was also charged in the crime.
Jackson also admitted the allegation of inflicting great bodily injury and to a prior strike, the DA’s office said Monday. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison.
“The plea agreement holds Mr. Jackson accountable for perpetrating a coldhearted violent act and provides justice for our victim,” the office said in a statement.
Lady Gaga’s representatives did not immediately return a request for comment.
Guns N’ Roses has an appetite for litigation.
The iconic ’80s rock band is suing a gun retailer that’s using the name “Texas Guns and Roses,” arguing that the name infringes the band’s trademark rights — and that they especially don’t want to be associated with firearms or “polarizing” political views.
In a complaint filed Thursday (Dec. 1) in Los Angeles federal court, GNR said the Houston-based retailer — operating under the corporate name Jersey Village Florists LLC — is clearly using the name to dupe consumers into thinking the band had somehow endorsed the business.
That would be bad no matter what the company was selling, but GNR’s lawyers said it was “particularly damaging” to the band “given the nature of Defendant’s business.”
“GNR, quite reasonably, does not want to be associated with defendant, a firearms and weapons retailer,” wrote the band’s lawyers, hailing from the law firm Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP. “Furthermore, defendant espouses political views related to the regulation and control of firearms and weapons on the website that may be polarizing to many U.S. consumers.”
According to GNR’s lawsuit, Texas Guns and Roses claims to sell actual roses on its website, but the band says it’s all a ruse: “This is a contrivance to purportedly justify defendant’s wholesale appropriation of the ‘Guns N’ Roses.”
In addition to trademark infringement, the band accused Texas Guns and Roses of so-called trademark dilution — a form of legal wrongdoing where someone uses your trademark in such a way that can “tarnish” its value. Linking a brand name to undesirable associations like a dangerous product or offensive views can form the basis for such claims.
Jersey Village Florists could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday.
It’s not the first time Guns N’ Roses has taken legal action over its name. Back in 2019, the band filed a similar trademark infringement lawsuit against Colorado craft brewery Oskar Blues after it launched a “Guns ‘N’ Rosé” ale. (The case quickly settled.) And in 2020, the band successfully petitioned the U.S. trademark office to block the grocery chain Aldi from registering “Sweet Cheddar of Mine” as a trademark for cheese.
HOUSTON (AP) — An attorney for a man accused of fatally shooting rapper Takeoff last month said Monday that the musician’s death outside a Houston bowling alley was a tragedy but that her client says he’s innocent of the crime.
Patrick Xavier Clark, 33, made a brief court appearance in which prosecutors and his defense attorneys agreed to hold a bond reduction hearing on Dec. 14. Clark was arrested on a murder charge last week and is jailed on a $2 million bond.
Clark, handcuffed and dressed in orange jail clothing, did not say anything during Monday’s hearing. Letitia Quinones, one of Clark’s attorneys, told reporters after the hearing that Clark is feeling “nervous and he’s concerned” because “he’s being charged with something that he believes he’s innocent of, so how would anyone do in that type of circumstance?”
Prosecutors declined to comment Monday.
Takeoff, 28, was shot in the head and back as more than 30 people were leaving a private party at the bowling alley. Houston police said at a news conference Friday that the gunfire followed a disagreement over a “lucrative” game of dice around 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 1, but that Takeoff was not involved and was “an innocent bystander.”
Police have said another man and a woman suffered non-life-threatening gunshot injuries, and that at least two people opened fired. Police said investigators are still trying to track down witnesses.
Born Kirsnick Khari Ball, Takeoff was the youngest member of Migos, the Grammy-nominated rap trio from suburban Atlanta that also featured his uncle Quavo and cousin Offset.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said last week that investigators didn’t know whether Clark was invited to the party or if he knew Takeoff. Clark works as a DJ, according to court records.
Asked Monday if Clark knew Takeoff, Quinones said, “We really don’t want to go into the facts at this point.”
She said that Takeoff’s death was a “tragedy and it’s happening well too often in our communities.”
“There is a lot of investigation that needs to be done. … So, we just ask that everyone keep an open mind and let the system do its part and let the Constitution do its part and that is, right now he’s innocent until he’s proven guilty,” Quinones said.
Court records indicate Clark was arrested as he was preparing to leave the country for Mexico after getting an expedited passport and that he had a “large amount” of cash.
Quinones said that Clark had been planning to go to Mexico on a vacation but had canceled his trip before his arrest.
“He wasn’t trying to go anywhere,” Quinones said.
Migos first broke through with the massive hit “Versace” in 2013. They had four Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, though Takeoff was not on their multi-week No. 1 hit “Bad and Boujee,” featuring Lil Uzi Vert. They put out a trilogy of albums called Culture, Culture II and Culture III, with the first two hitting No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
In the weeks before his death, Takeoff and Quavo put out Only Built for Infinity Links. Takeoff hoped the joint album would build respect for his lyrical abilities, telling the Drink Champs podcast, “It’s time to give me my flowers.”
More than two dozen Taylor Swift fans are suing Live Nation over Ticketmaster’s botched sale of tickets to her Eras tour last month, accusing the company of “anticompetitive conduct,” fraud and other forms of wrongdoing.
In a complaint filed Friday in Los Angeles court – the first known lawsuit over the fiasco – attorneys for the Swift fans called the sale a “disaster” and pinned the blame on Ticketmaster, which they called a “monopoly that is only interested in taking every dollar it can from a captive public.”
“In markets without a singular, monopolistic company, charging prices and fees like Ticketmaster would be impossible,” lawyers for the fans wrote. “And Ticketmaster does not do anything to justify these higher costs. Ticketmaster’s service is not superior or reliable; the massive disaster of the Taylor Swift presale is evidence enough of this.”
In addition to antitrust violations, the lawsuit accused Ticketmaster of intentionally misleading fans ahead of the sale – both by offering more presale codes than it had tickets to sell, and by allowing bots and scalpers into the sale. And because of the company’s unfair control over the secondary resale market, the Taylor fans say Ticketmaster was “eager to allow this arrangement.”
“Ticketmaster claimed that only those with codes would be able to join the presale, but millions of buyers without codes were able to get tickets,” the accusers wrote in the lawsuit. “Many of those without codes were scalpers, and Ticketmaster benefited from scalped tickets as they must be resold on Ticketmaster, who gets an additional fee.”
The new lawsuit came three weeks after the infamous Nov. 15 presale, which saw widespread service delays and website crashes as millions of fans tried – and many failed – to buy tickets for Swift’s 2023 Eras Tour.
Ticketmaster has apologized to fans and pinned the blame on a “staggering number of bot attacks” and “unprecedented traffic.” But that explanation has seemingly not been enough for many of the company’s critics, who have resurfaced longstanding complaints about the outsized power Ticketmaster and Live Nation have wielded in the market for live music since they merged in 2010.
Lawmakers in both parties on Capitol Hill have called for renewed antitrust scrutiny, and news broke days after the presale that the U.S. Department of Justice had already been investigating Live Nation for potential antitrust violations. Attorneys general in a number of states have also launched their own probes, looking to see whether any state-level consumer protection or antitrust laws were breached.
The new lawsuit echoed those gripes, saying that artists like “have no choice but to work through Ticketmaster” and that “virtually all major music concert ticket sales” are handled by the service. The company then leverages that control to dominate secondary ticket re-sales, the Taylor fans allege, giving the Ticketmaster an incentive to allow bots and scalpers into presales.
“Ticketmaster has stated that it has taken steps to address [scalping], but in reality, has taken steps to make additional profit from the scalped tickets,” lawyers for the Taylor fans wrote. “Ticketmaster forces purchases of tickets from its site to use only Ticketmaster’s Secondary Ticket Exchange for the resale of those tickets. Ticketmaster then gets the higher fees paid by fans who have no choice but to pay for the ‘right’ to use the Ticketmaster Secondary Ticket Exchange platform.”
Whether such claims will be legally successful remains to be seen. Proving that a company violates antitrust laws is no easy task, and linking those supposed violations to actual harm suffered by the spurned Swift fans will be equally difficult.
A rep for Live Nation did not immediately return a request for comment.
A talent manager who allegedly helped artists like Vampire Weekend and Marshmello gain access to $200 million in COVID-19 relief funds is the target of a new lawsuit that claims he stole the idea to tap those government funds — aimed primarily at helping venues, not artists — from somebody else.
In a complaint filed Wednesday (Nov. 30) in Los Angeles court, longtime music agent Laurence Leader says he was the first to realize that artists might also be able to access Shuttered Venue Operators Grants, a COVID-era federal program that gave out more than $14 billion to help live venues shuttered by the pandemic.
But Leader claims his “novel idea” was quickly stolen by talent manager Michael Oppenheim, who then allegedly used the same scheme to secure more than $200 million in SVOG funds for his own clients at the talent firm NKSFB, including Vampire Weekend, Marshmello, Common, Lil Wayne and many others.
In a complaint seeking more than $30 million in damages, Leader called Oppenheim’s conduct “despicable” and an “outright betrayal” of his trust.
“This lawsuit is brought due to the blatant and brazen theft by defendants of [Leader]’s novel idea for popular mainstream artist and band clients to obtain a grant under a specific government program,” wrote attorneys for Leader’s company, London Calling Entertainment.
Oppenheim did not immediately return a request for comment. Leader’s lawsuit, filed by veteran music litigator Richard Busch, was first reported by the news outlet Puck.
Launched by the U.S. Small Business Administration in April 2021, Shuttered Venue Operators Grants were designed to do exactly what they sound like — provide financial aid to live venues and others companies closely related to them, like vendors that provide services for live events. According to the last report issued by the SBA in July, more than $14 billion was handed out to more than 20,000 businesses.
Though the SVOG funds were a lifeline during COVID for many venues, some have argued they were left out. Dozens of venues have filed lawsuits against SBA over the past two years, claiming they were unfairly denied millions in aid.
In his lawsuit, Leader claims he was the first to discover that touring artists might also qualify for the program. Even though he says others doubted him, he believed that one definition of SVOG eligibility — “performing arts organization operators” — sounded “precisely” like the so-called loan-out companies that artists use to handle their touring businesses.
When Leader used that approach and tried applying for an unnamed jazz musician in June 2021, it was an immediate success: He says his client was quickly awarded nearly $10 million in SVOG money.
Leader says he soon shared his grant idea with Oppenheim, whom he says he’s known professionally for more than 40 years. But Leader claims he shared the SVOG concept “confidentially,” with the clear understanding that he could only be used if Leader was paid a 15 percent commission on grants secured.
Oppenheim initially believe the plan would not work and voiced “skepticism,” Leader’s lawyers say, and eventually went “radio silent” on the entire thing. But Leader claims he later discovered that the talent manager and his firm NKSFB had in fact boldly embraced the idea — allegedly filing successful SVOG applications for more than 70 of their client artists.
“As a direct and proximate result of defendant’s misuse of plaintiff London Calling’s idea … defendants obtained SVOG program grants totaling well in excess of $200 million,” Leader’s lawyers wrote.
Leader doesn’t claim that his idea is a piece of intellectual property, like a patent, copyright or trade secret, since it almost certainly wouldn’t qualify for any such formal protection. As the case is litigated, Oppenheim’s attorneys might argue back that no single person should be able to claim proprietary rights to the process of merely applying for a public government aid program.
But Leader says he and Oppenheim forged an “implied contract” that his valuable idea — helping artists access an otherwise off-limits program — would remain confidential unless Leader was compensated. By using the same scheme for his own ends without payment, Leader says Oppenheim breached that contract.
In monetary terms, he’s seeking $30 million in damages — or a 15 percent cut of the $200 million that Oppenheim allegedly secured in grants. Leader also wants an unspecified amount of “punitive” damages on the grounds that the breach of contract was “willful and malicious.”
Read Leader’s entire lawsuit here:
Before Jay-Z became embroiled in a nasty dispute with Bacardi over their D’Usse Cognac brand, he offered to buy out Bacardi’s half of the business for $1.5 billion, according to newly unsealed legal documents that reveal the sweeping size of the ongoing legal battle.
In the new filing, attorneys for Jay-Z’s SCLiquor LLC disclosed that the star made the offer last year after Bacardi offered him just $460 million for his half of D’Usse. Bacardi quickly rejected the offer, the filing said, even though the star had proposed to pay more than three times what the liquor giant itself believed a 50% stake in the business was worth.
The new document also reveals that Jay-Z believes his share in the business is worth $2.5 billion, the first public hint at how much the star is seeking from Bacardi amid the acrimonious split.
Taken together, the disclosures offer an early glimpse into how much could be at stake in the now-sprawling legal battle over Jay-Z’s efforts to exit D’Usse, which spans at least four lawsuits in two states as well as a private arbitration case.
A rep for Jay-Z declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Bacardi did not immediately return a request for comment on the disclosures.
The legal battle over D’Usse centers on Jay-Z’s exercise of a so-called “put option” — a legal mechanism in the joint venture’s operating agreement that, when triggered, requires Bacardi to buy out Jay-Z’s half of the business. Once invoked, the two sides are supposed to negotiate in “good faith,” exchange information and agree on a fair price for Bacardi to pay.
In this week’s unsealed documents, Jay-Z’s lawyers said he triggered the clause in September 2021, but that when the two sides exchanged figures in December 2021, they came in with vastly different valuations. The rapper suggested his half of the business was worth $2.5 billion; Bacardi said the number was just $460 million.
That was when Jay-Z apparently made his counter-offer: Rather than continue to invoke his put option requiring Bacardi to buy him out, he would offer to go vice-versa. “SC formally offered to buy Bacardi’s 50% interest in D’Usse for $1.5 billion, three times Bacardi’s declared valuation of its share (but less than SC believed it was worth),” his lawyers wrote in the new documents.
When Bacardi turned down that offer, the legal battle began.
As a first step, independent experts at JPMorgan were hired to appraise Jay-Z’s stake in D’Usse, but the process quickly became bogged down in disputes over what processes and data the bank should use to do so. Those disputes were submitted to a private arbitration panel, which then led to multiple New York court lawsuits challenging the arbitration panel’s rulings. Two separate lawsuits have also been filed in Delaware court, accusing Bacardi of “stonewalling” and demanding more access to information from D’Usse.
Those cases are all ongoing, including with a testy hearing in New York court on Thursday (Dec. 1) and a potential arbitration hearing on Friday (Dec. 2).
Notably, the newly unsealed document appears to have been made public accidentally.
Like much of a legal battle that’s been shrouded in unusual secrecy, the filings were originally submitted on Nov. 22 under seal. But on Tuesday (Nov. 29) evening, they were suddenly made public on the court’s digital docket. Letters to the judge indicate that the move was unexpected and that the filing should not have been published until it was further redacted. The document, first reported by Bloomberg Law and independently obtained by Billboard, was then fully re-sealed by Thursday afternoon.
Along with Jay-Z’s massive offer, the filing also revealed other key financial information about the dispute.
For instance, Jay-Z’s lawyers say they wanted JPMorgan’s appraisal to be based on an internal Bacardi document that forecast D’Usse to sell more than 2 million cases of cognac and earn $142.8 million annually by 2026. Bacardi apparently objected, saying those figures were “aspirational” and not a good indicator of the brand’s actual value.
Whether or not JPMorgan can cite the Bacardi forecast is now one of the major points of contention in the litigation.
Read the entire unsealed document here:
A new lawsuit claims that CNN used more than 100 different songs in international segments without paying for them, constituting copyright infringement on a “breathtaking scale.”
Freeplay Music, a company that sells so-called production music for use in web videos, television segments and other content – and hasn’t been afraid to sue over it – claims the cable news giant used the company’s library of music as “their own personal cookie jar” for segments on CNN Philippines, CNN Indonesia, CNN Chile.
“As high-profile news media companies which strive to provide the best news product all across the world, CNN and the international parties know they must obtain a license to use other’s intellectual property,” Freeplay’s lawyers wrote in the complaint. “Despite this, they willfully and consciously did not do so here on a breathtaking scale.”
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in California federal court, claimed that CNN used 115 songs across 283 segments. And Freeplay’s lawyers say they were “not minor uses” but rather “essential to each of the segment” – allegedly often used throughout entire segments.
Discovering the illicit use of their music in foreign media segments was like “finding a needle in a haystack,” Freeplay’s lawyers say, but that CNN knew that when it allegedly stole the music: “CNN apparently counted on the difficulty of being caught in deciding to engage in this massive willful copyright infringement.”
Freeplay is seeking at least $17 million in damages, saying anything less “would not get the attention of these media goliaths that continue to commit widespread infringement of FPM’s intellectual property.”
A spokesperson for CNN did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday.
The case is hardly Freeplay’s first. Court records show that the company has filed dozens of similar copyright lawsuits over alleged unauthorized uses of its music, including cases against online retail giant Alibaba and guitar maker Gibson. Most recently, Freeplay sued Ford Motor Co. in 2020 over accusations that the car company had used 54 different songs in online promotional videos but was was “too cheap” to pay for them.
Ford later countersued in that case, accusing Freeplay of actively seeking out litigation with “bait-and-switch” practices. The carmaker said Freeplay falsely advertises that its music is free to lure companies and individuals to the platform, only to later sue them “to extort vast amounts of money” when they used the music.
“Freeplay has asserted copyright infringement claims in dozens of lawsuits, extracting settlements in these litigations and … in an untold number of other instances where the simple threat of litigation was enough to shake down Internet users who mistakenly thought they were getting exactly what Freeplay advertises – music that was “free” to use,” Ford’s lawyers wrote at the time.
The case between Freeplay and Ford ended in a settlement last year.
Esteemed law firms Mark Music & Media Law and Roberts & Hafitz have merged to create one bicoastal entity under the name Mark Music & Media Law, P.C. The combined firm will host 15 lawyers, based out of offices in Los Angeles, New York, and Nashville.
Courtesy Photo
Over the years, attorneys under the newly merged MMML have represented clients like Billie Eilish, Guns N’ Roses, The Chainsmokers, Tool, Smokey Robinson, Benny Blanco, Amy Allen, Andrew Watt, New Kids on the Block, Pink Sweat$, Ice Spice, Danny Elfman, Atticus Ross, Lauren Spencer-Smith, Finneas, among many others. They have acted as advisors for film companies’ in-house music divisions, including Warner Bros. for its A Star is Born, Elvis, Space Jam: A New Legacy, and Suicide Squad and MGM for No Time to Die, Respect. Members of the team have also worked with Arthouse Entertainment, Loma Vista, and Epitaph Records.
The New York-based Roberts & Hafitz is helmed by father-son duo Jaimie Roberts and Harry Roberts as well as Michael Hafitz. Now the two films have merged, the MMML New York bureau will comprise of the three leaders as well as Katelyn Wicks, Marisa Masters, Stephen Goldstein, and Leon Morabia.
The Los Angeles hub will host longtime Angelenos Doug Mark and David Ferreria — both partners at MMML — as well as Jared Tankel, Marisa Novak, Eric Morris, Todd Thorson, and Blake Leeper. Elizabeth Gregory will be Of Counsel out of Nashville.
Mark, MMML Founding Partner says of the merger, “we wanted to further build an exciting presence in New York to complement our West Coast group, and now with Harry and his team together with Leon, our firm further establishes itself as the “go-to” for the next generation of superstar talent and entrepreneurs looking for counsel in this ever-changing industry.”
Roberts, MMML Partner adds, “having gotten to know Doug, David, and the MMML team in both a personal and professional capacity, it was clear that they shared the same values and vision as we do. The synergy that the joining of our two practices creates, particularly in terms of resources and firepower, will instantly benefit our clients and colleagues as we continue to build a progressive and modern entertainment legal practice.”