MOG founder sues Beats

Billboard reports that David Hyman, the founder of streaming music service MOG, which was acquired by Beats Electronics in 2012, has issued legal proceedings against Beats for more than $20 million, claiming that Beats fired him to avoid giving him an equity payout, according to a report from Courthouse News Service. News of the suit arrives as Apple is reportedly closing in on a deal to acquire Beats for $3.2 billion. Hyman, a serial entrepreneur who was also once CEO of Gracenote, claims in the suit that Beats dismissed him in bad faith, knowing that he would receive 2.5% of the company under an incentive plan based on the duration of his employment,  andHyman claims Beats was intentionally depriving him of his fair equity compensation. The suit names Daisy LLC as a co-defendant, the report said; Beats Music was code-named Project Daisy before its launch in January.  More at http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/6091835/mog-founder-files-lawsuit-against-beats-fired-him-20-million

UPDATE: Now a second writ ha surfaced - one time hedge-fund manager Steven Lamar claims he first took the idea of celebrity-endorsed headphones to Universal executive  Jimmy Iovine back in 2006, (with the latter bringing in Dr Dre). Lamar says that, via his businesses SLS International and Jibe Audio, he then put together a consortium of companies to make the project happen, including Pentagram who designed the initial product and a Chinese company who would handle manufacturing.  Lamar's new lawsuit is against Iovine, Dre, Beats, his former partners Pentagram, and the main man he dealt with there, Robert Brunner. The suit alleges that after the original legal agreement between all the founding partners in 2006, Brunner and Pentagram reached a separate arrangement with the Beats business that basically cut him and his company out of a royalty revenue stream.