DR DRE AND JIMMY IOVINE SUED OVER BEATS/MONSTER HEADPHONE PARTNERSHIP

Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine are being sued by a former business partner who used to own part of Beats.

Noel Lee, the founder of video and audio cable maker Monster, claims it ripped off headphone technology ahead of the firm's sale to Apple for more than $3bn (£1.9bn).
The lawsuit alleges that Dre and Iovine pirated the Beats By Dr Dre headphone line from Monster and its CEO Noel Lee.
The complaint, filed in California, makes several other allegations.
They include claims that Beats "fraudulently acquired" the line of headphones in a "sham transaction" with Taiwan smartphone company HTC in 2011.
A statement from Monster's law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy says that Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine "made millions off the work of Monster and Lee, while the plaintiffs lost millions".
Under a partnership which started in 2008, Monster and Beats developed Beats by Dr Dre with Noel Lee owning a 5% stake in the firm.

According to the lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Monster claims it engineered the success of the headphones and was unfairly cut out before Beats was sold to Apple last year.
Noel Lee claims that the deal with HTC forced him to cut his holding to 1.25%.
He says he then had no other option but to sell his remaining stake for $5.5m (£3.6m) near the end of 2013.

Lee says if he'd still had his 1.25% stake, he would have received more than $30m (£19.8m) in the Apple deal.
His original 5% stake would have been worth around $150m (£99m).

Beats founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre posing with Apple CEO Tim Cook and senior VP Eddy Cue

There's been no response yet from Dr Dre's lawyer - or from Beats.
It's the second lawsuit against the firm since Apple bought it last year.
The first was brought by the Bose Corporation over patented technology for cancelling noise in earphones.
That case was settled under undisclosed terms in October.
Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine are also being sued by David Hyman, who sold his music streaming service MOG to Beats in 2012.
That court case, filed shortly before the Apple deal was sealed, is taking place now in Los Angeles.
Jimmy Iovine is the co-founder of Interscope Records, a rap music pioneer that branched out to include acts like Lady Gaga and U2.