Ice Cube's Basketball League Ends Fraud, Malpractice Suit Against Quinn Emanuel
Big3's lawsuit, which Quinn Emanuel had derided as "fantasy-laden," lasted just 11 days.
June 12, 2020 at 01:43 PM
3 minute read
O'Shea Jackson Sr., aka Ice Cube, at a screening for the film "Ride Along" in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Three-on-three basketball league The Big3, co-owned by Ice Cube, has quietly abandoned a lawsuit accusing Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan of putting its lucrative relationship with the Republic of Qatar ahead of its attorney-client obligations to the fledgling sports project.
Eleven days after an explosive complaint alleging that the litigation powerhouse inserted itself into a court fight the league had with its former commissioner to serve the interests of existing Qatari clients, The Big3 filed papers Monday to discontinue the New York state lawsuit with prejudice.
"Big3 and Quinn have resolved their disputes in their entirety," league attorney Michael Taitelman said in an email.
Quinn Emanuel did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Attorneys with Beys Liston & Mobargha in New York and Freedman + Taitelman in Los Angeles wrote in the complaint that the law firm ignored "inescapable" conflicts of interest when offering to represent the league in a lawsuit brought by ex-commissioner Roger Mason, and used its involvement to shift the defense strategy away from a focus on Qatar's conduct.
Mason was fired as commissioner in 2018. The league, which is co-owned by Harvard Law graduate and longtime entertainment industry executive Jeff Kwatinetz, contended that Mason was pushed out because he and other Big3 employees had been corrupted by agents of the Qatari government who had promised the previous year to make a multimillion-dollar investment in the league. This was part of the same push for international respectability that informed the country's successful bid for the 2022 World Cup, which, according to the complaint, also depended on bribery and involved the same principals.
In a statement after the suit was filed, Quinn Emanuel cast the complaint as a "fantasy-laden" attempt by Big3 to avoid its legal bills. "Unfortunately, Big3 doesn't want to pay us for the work we did," the firm said May 28. "Big3 was fully advised about the firm's other various representations and is simply trying to avoid paying its bills."
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