Rapper Snoop Dogg’s fight for a share of Pabst Brewing Company’s $700 million acquisition deal will continue this fall, a California court has ruled.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Malcolm H. Mackey declined on Monday to dismiss the rapper’s lawsuit against Pabst, court records show. The complaint says the Brewer reneged on the terms of its 2011 endorsement deal with Snoop to promote Blast, one of Pabst’s Colt 45 malt liquor brands.
Terms of the deal entitled Snoop, whose real name is Calvin Broadus Jr., to a portion of the profits if the brand he endorsed was sold before January of 2016, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Pabst sold all its stock in 2014 to a newly formed third-party holding company for $700 million, which triggered the “phantom equity” clause in Snoop’s deal, his attorney argued.
But Pabst’s attorneys claim the sale only transferred control of its brands, not ownership of them, and therefore, the company doesn’t owe Snoop another dime.
“[Pabst’s] sale of its stock to a third party did not affect [Pabst’s] continued ownership of the Colt 45 brand,” Pabst attorney Robert Dugdale wrote in his client’s motion for summery judgment. “[Pabst] still owns that brand in its entirety to this day.”
Judge Mackey called the summary judgment motion “maddening,” before rejecting it Monday and setting a trial date in October, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
“You gentlemen have conjured up a lot of facts on this case,” he said of Pabst’s attorneys.
