South Bay Company Seeks to Deposition Apple's CEO Tim Cook in Squabble Over Beats Electronics

LAWNDALE, CA — In a continuing legal squabble over the multibillion-dollar sale of Beats Electronics, attorneys for Monster LLC are renewing their request to take a deposition of Apple CEO Tim Cook, alleging lawyers for the company misrepresented to the court the date when Apple began talks to acquire Beats.

In partially redacted documents filed Monday, Monster's lawyers also are seeking $25,175 in attorneys' fees. They say Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Fahey denied their previous motion to depose Cook based on Apple lawyers' assertions that negotiations to acquire Beats began in March 2014, when the talks actually started a year sooner.

Apple's own internal documents show a timeline about the Beats acquisition talks that contradict what Fahey was told by the company's lawyers, the new Monster court papers allege.

"Given these significant distortions of the underlying facts, this court's decision of May 24 is tainted and should result in sanctions," Monster lawyers contend in court documents.

Monster attorneys want to depose Cook by Aug. 19. A hearing on their motion is scheduled Aug. 8.

An Apple representative did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.

In his May ruling, Fahey, while denying the Monster motion to depose Cook, said the company's lawyers could take the deposition of Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of internet software and services. The judge said at the time that Monster's lawyers could renew their bids to depose Cook and Noreen Krall, Apple's vice president and chief litigation counsel, if they can show they could not get the information they need from other members of the Apple hierarchy.

The Monster lawsuit, originally filed in January 2015 in San Mateo Superior Court and transferred last fall to Los Angeles, alleges that Beats terminated its relationship with Monster so Beats could be acquired by Apple.

The suit also names as defendants Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, as well as Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp.

Monster's suit further alleges the defendants conspired to keep Monster out of a deal with Beats before the company was sold for $3.2 billion in 2014 to Apple in what was the Cupertino-based company's largest-ever acquisition.

The lawsuit alleges Beats fraudulently acquired a line of headphones created by Dr. Dre through a sham transaction with HTC, which agreed to purchase a 51 percent stake in Beats for $300 million in 2011.

Monster attorney Philip Gregory said Wednesday that in the future he also will ask Fahey to allow him to depose record producer Marion "Suge" Knight, who is in jail on murder and other charges stemming from a fatal hit-run in Compton in January 2015. They say that based on the testimony of another witness, Knight may have information relevant to the Beats acquisition.

Apple, Cook, Cue and Krall are not defendants in Monster's lawsuit.

Cook recommended the Beats transaction to Apple's board of directors and Cue was Apple's point person on the purchase, according to court papers filed by Monster's attorneys.

Cue had a longstanding relationship with Iovine that began before Cook was named Apple's CEO, according to Monsters' attorneys.

According to Monster's attorneys' court papers, after Monster sued Beats, Krall "personally ensured that all of Monster's contracts with Apple were immediately terminated ... signing the termination letters herself."

Monster helped launch the Beats brand of headphones, which became popular among celebrities, in July 2008. Monster said it developed, manufactured and distributed the headphones in exchange for the licensing rights to the Beats brand and celebrity marketing by Iovine and Dr. Dre, whose real name is Andre Young.

— City News Service, photo courtesy of Valery Marchive via Flickr