First by Bose and now by Monster, Apple has seemed to be in the news for all the wrong reasons since their Beats acquisition last year.With $2.5 billion for the headphones segment, Apple had already garnered a few speculations when they paid a chunk of the $500 million for streaming services in stocks.
Noel Lee, founder and CEO of Monster has sued Apple’s Beats Electronics in San Mateo County’s Supreme Court in a lawsuit claiming that Beats Electronics fraudulently acquired the line of headphones and its technology when HTC acquired a majority stake in 2011. What has resulted in a “Corporate Betrayal” off sorts, Lee claims he was persuaded to reduce his 5 percent stake in the company in 2012 which was then staked back to Beats for $5.5 million.
Two other Beats executives, HTC defendants have been indicted in this lawsuit as Monster is seeking unspecified punitive damages while Apple declined to comment on the filing.With his 5% stake been valued at more than 100 millions at this point by himself, Noel Lee doesn’t believe he has been compensated properly for his losses.
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