Apple’s Beats unit awarded $7.9 million fees involving a fraud suit

Apple’s Beats Electronics won a $7.9 million jury verdict meant to compensate the audio products unit for the legal fees it paid in defeating a $1 billion fraud suit from Monster LLC, reports Law360.

In August 2016 a judge dismissed the key claims in a lawsuit alleging that Beats Electronics duped one of its early partners before negotiating its $3 billion sale to Apple in 2014. The summary judgment issued by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Fahey resolved the core of a case that accused Beats co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine of double-crossing former partner Noel Lee, founder of video and audio cable maker Monster LLC.

Monster CEO Lee said in the suit that he and Monster invented the technology behind the Beats headphones. The suit claimed that Beats co-founders Iovine and Dre (Andre Young) committed fraud in pirating the headphones away from Lee and Monster.

The suit charged that the Beats co-founders concealed the role of Monster and Lee in designing and engineering the headphone line, as well as educating them about engineering, manufacturing, distributing and selling the headphones that Monster and Lee invented.