Source: Shareif Ziyadat / Getty
A month after hip-hop mogul Sean Combs filed a lawsuit against liquor giant Diageo PLC, the company responded by dropping him altogether.
In the suit, filed in NY Supreme Court in Manhattan in late May, Combs allege that Diageo had not supported their joint ventures involving his Ciroc vodka and DeLeón tequila. He also alleges that the company undermined the brands by marketing them as “urban,” rather than something for the general market.
Diageo (which also distributes Captain Morgan and Johnnie Walker brands) responded in their own filing on June 27, asking for the suit to be dropped and announcing that they are severing ties with Combs.
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“We are saddened that Mr. Combs has chosen to recast a business dispute as anything other than that and chosen to damage a productive and valued partnership,” Diageo said in a statement to Variety. “Mr. Combs’ bad-faith actions have clearly breached his contracts and left us no choice but to move to dismiss his baseless complaint and end our business relationship. Mr. Combs has repeatedly undermined our partnerships and threatened to publicly defame Diageo if we did not meet his unreasonable financial demands.”
The company also alleged that they tried to salvage their relationship with Combs by funding the purchase of DeLeón and investing more than $100 million into the brand.
However, they claim that Combs only contributed $1000 into the investment and “refused to honor his commitments.”
A rep for Combs could not be reached for comment.
