JAY-Z is allowing his legal battle with Iconix Brand Group to move forward after halting the proceedings over the lack of black arbitrators. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Hov withdrew his motion to stop the arbitration after receiving a commitment to diversity from the American Arbitration Association.
“While the information AAA provided has confirmed that AAA lacks an appreciable number of minority (and particularly, African-American) arbitrators, AAA has indicated an openness both to an arbitrator selection process in this Arbitration that will allow for meaningful consideration of African-American arbitrators and to broader remedial measures intended to improve the diversity of the arbitrator roster for future arbitrations,” JAY-Z’s lawyers Alex Spiro wrote in a letter.
JAY-Z and Iconix are engaged in a dispute over the Roc Nation logo. Iconix paid $204 million for Rocawear in 2007 and claims that some of Roc Nation’s intellectual property, such as the logo, were part of the deal.
Iconix launched its lawsuit after Roc Nation released a line of New Era caps in partnership with Major League Baseball, prompting a countersuit from Roc Nation. The case was scheduled to go to arbitration before JAY-Z turned his attention to another matter in the proceedings.
Hov took issue with the lack of diversity among the American Arbitration Association in a motion filed last month. JAY-Z’s attorney argued that his client was only provided with three potential black arbitrators, one of which had a conflict of interest with Iconix.
“When Mr. Carter began reviewing arbitrators on the AAA’s Search Platform, however, he was confronted with a stark reality: he could not identify a single African-American arbitrator on the ‘Large and Complex Cases’ roster, composed of hundreds of arbitrators, that had the background and experience to preside over the Arbitration,” Spiro wrote in the original petition. “After repeated requests to the AAA for diverse arbitrators with expertise in complex commercial law, the AAA was able to provide only three neutrals it identified as African-American: two men — one of whom was a partner at the law firm representing Iconix in this arbitration and thus had a glaringly obvious conflict of interest — and one woman.”
Although Iconix painted the complaint as a “charade,” a New York judge granted JAY-Z’s motion for a temporary restraining order and put a halt to the case. Now that Hov has withdrawn the motion, the judge has scheduled a status conference in the case for March 2019.
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When does it become racist to assume someone is racist becuz of the color of their skin? Like does he expect a black arbitrator to be bias in his favor to even the field…how does that solve anything? The conflict is about the arbitrators business relationship not their skin color. Are we suppose to assume that a black arbitrator favoring a black guy has no bias undertone, but when the it’s white it is bias? I think Jay has done pretty well for himself in the business world to this point…why would I assume race has something to do with this now?
We are to assume that having 300 white arbitrators is less than fair though. That speaks volumes to the racial biases of AAA to be perfectly honest. I’m not sure (Well I am sure) why you think that black people should not fight for equality in all aspects of the judicial system? I mean really, 300 or so Arbitrators and all of them were non-black? Really? You good with that?
Ok. So blacks are 15% of the populous. We need to quit out gays, trans, women? I never see black folk complaining about women’s rights, native Americans or Latinos. There are less blacks in America than Latinos. I don’t see the Browns folk crying. I guess they’re too busy working and taking advantage of all of the opportunities this country provides them. They could keep bitching about the lack of opportunities. Is anyone talking about building walls around Compton, or deporting Tyrone?
Typical for a PRIVILEGED racist.
Jay “Stabby” Z is a SJW now. Hilarious. He wasn’t worried about diversity when he was selling metric tons to BLACKS only with Dame. The hipocrysy kills me. Mr. Dope lord, King of NY kill everyone. Hahahahaha. What an embarrassment.
Hahahaha. Diversity? Give him an all gay and Latino AAA board. His Whiney ass will lose hands down. What a dipshit. Let the most qualified work, regardless of race. Dope dealer/cheater/gangster…
Are we actually supposed to believe that he cares about black folks? His only concerns are his fame and his money. He’s using a non-issue to make it seem like he cares. Race is front and center in America right now so he does these things for publicity. Listen to Reasonablr Doubt, Vol 1,2,3, BP 1,2, dynasty abd black album and show me where he really talked about the issues faced by his people in any sort of real way. He never did. Instead he threw his money in peoples faces and bragged about the same crap over and over.
Nobody comments here except angry racist wypipo who masquerade as hip hop fans.
“angry racist wypipo” the irony of calling others racists while saying something racist about white people and assume it can only be racist white people who make comments on here XD
Almost as crazy as believing black people have the ability and political standing in this country to be racist towards white people.