Jay-Z and Dame Dash built an empire in the late 1990s that would grow to take over East Coast hip-hop with Roc-a-fella. However, since the label’s dissolution in 2008, the former friends haven’t seen eye to eye.
Regardless of the tension between the two over the years, Jay-Z (real name Shawn Carter) has recently stepped in to help his former business partner as he enters legal proceedings concerning his shares in the company.
According to documents obtained by Radar Online, Dash was ordered to sell his shares of Roc-A-Fella Records by a judge after refusing to pay $823,000 to the movie producer Josh Weber for copyright infringement and defamation concerning the 2016 film Dear Frank, which he directed.
Since his refusal to pay Weber, a judge has ruled that the payment will be made via a seizure of Dash’s assets, most notably his Roc-a-Fella shares. However, his fellow co-founders Jay-Z and Kareem Burke have highlighted how, by law, a board of directors must first approve the sell-off.
Unfortunately, Judge Robert W. Lehrburger ruled that it is within US law that Dash’s shares can be seized to help cover the judgment since they are his personal property. In a 15-page dossier, Lehrburger attacked the pair for recently creating a no sell-off clause to block the court from accessing Dash’s shares.
Jay and Biggs’ are not siding with Dame, however, but are concerned at how easily the courts are able to determine who can and can’t have ownership of the company they took years to build.
In a bid to ease tensions, Lehrburger said that Carter and Burke “can participate in the auction and place the winning bid.” However, the business partners seem insistent that no legal entity should be determining ownership.
