Monster has filed a lawsuit against Beats and its co-founders, Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, in North California claiming that the Beats co-founders hid business dealings from the company and its CEO. Beats eventually cut the latter off totally before being purchased by Apple for $3 billion.
Furthermore, the suit brings forth that Monster lost millions from its investments as Beats rose to eventually be acquired by Apple for $3 billion in 2014.
The complaint goes on to say that the company has a “pattern and practice†to “lure entrepreneurs, musicians, and electronic product developers with promises of growing a business as partners,†then quickly turn around and “squeeze the trusting partner out of the equation.†That’s only after they’ve plucked things like intellectual property, as well as production and supply secrets, the complaint adds.
Beats and Monster were in business with each other until 2012, until they both turned their backs on each other. HTC was also an investor in Beats up until 2013, when it put $300 million into the company until Iovine and Dre bought it back.
To make matters worse, Beats then proceeded to bad mouth about Monster to all their common distributors and retailers, who were initially introduced to the company by Monster itself. Beats then eventually forced distributors and retailers to completely drop Monster’s lineup of audio products.
