BY: Walker
Published 10 months ago
Damon Dash will soon no longer be co-owner of Roc-A-Fella Records after a judge ordered him to sell his shares.
via: Radar Online
The New York judge issued the damning verdict after Dash allegedly refused to pay a $823k judgment to movie producer Josh Weber, who successfully sued him for defamation and copyright infringement following a dispute over the 2016 film Dear Frank.
Beyonce’s husband along with co-owner Kareem “Biggs” Burke objected to the auction, claiming the company bylaws mandate that the board of directors must first approve the sell-off.
But in a 15-page decision, U.S. Magistrate Robert W. Lehrburger shut down the claim and ruled Dash’s one-third ownership of the Roc-A-Fella is personal property that can be seized to satisfy a judgment.
“The question at the core of the instant dispute is whether the RAF By-Laws’ prohibition on transfer and sale of Dash’s one-third ownership interest in shares of RAF without the consent of RAF’s board of directors legally prevents sale of Dash’s interest in RAF to satisfy the Judgment,” Leherburger wrote in his decision. “The answer indisputably is no.”
“Without jurisdiction to enforce a judgment entered by a federal court, the judicial power would be incomplete and entirely inadequate to the purposes for which it was conferred by the Constitution.”
The legal scrum erupted between 2016 and 2018 when Weber and his Muddy Waters Pictures fired Dash as the film’s director because he was allegedly unfit for the job.
Dash, who claimed Weber hijacked the footage, allegedly claimed it was his feature film and began shopping the crime thriller to outlets like BET under a new title: The List.
Weber successfully sued Dash in federal court but was unable to collect on the 2022 judgment. Jay-Z and Burke entered the fray when Weber tried to confiscate Dash’s stake in the record company whose artists included Kanye West, and Jadakiss, among other chart-topping rappers.
Lehrburger blasted Jay-Z and Burke because the duo adopted the no sell-off clause in 2021 during a board meeting that Dash did not attend or vote for. He ordered Roc-A-Fella to deliver Dash’s stock certificate to the U.S. Marshals Service for an auction in 180 days.
To address concerns over the intellectual rights of the record company, Lehrburger said, “They can participate in the auction and place the winning bid” to prevent an outsider from purchasing Roc-A-Fella.
As RadarOnline.com reported, Dash, 52, is also engaged in another court battle with ex-wife, Rachel Roy, in a desperate bid to get his child support payments reduced to $438 a month from $3,000 citing financial hardships and low annual income.