Lawsuit alleges Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine ‘swindled’ former Beats partner Noel Lee prior to sale.

RAPPER Dr. Dre and record producer Jimmy Iovine are being vilified as scam artists in a lawsuit that alleges the duo duped one of their former partners in Beat Electronics before selling the trendy headphone maker to Apple for $US3 billion ($A3.72 billion) last year.
The complaint filed Tuesday in San Mateo Superior Court accuses Dre and Lovine of double crossing Noel Lee, the founder of video and audio cable maker Monster LLC.
Lee once held a 5 per cent stake in Beats as part of a partnership between the headphone maker and Monster that ended in 2012. The lawsuit alleges Dre and Lovine orchestrated a “sham” deal with smartphone maker HTC in 2011 that led to the termination of the Monster alliance.
The suit alleges the shady manoeuvring prompted Lee to pare his stake in Beats to 1.25 per cent before selling his remaining holdings for $5.5 million in the autumn of 2013 after being assured by Beats executives that there were no plans to sell the company for at least several years.
This isn’t the first time that a former Beats partner has lashed out at Dre and Lovine in court. David Hyman, who sold his music streaming service MOG to Beats in 2012, is suing the two men for bad faith. That action, filed shortly before the Apple deal was sealed, is unfolding in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Lee appears to be interested in recovering the money that he believes he lost through the alleged misconduct of Dre and Iovine. The lawsuit also depicts Lee as the brains behind the Beats By Dre headphones while casting Dre and Iovine as little more than figureheads. One section of the lawsuit likens Lee to two more famous innovators, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and sound-system pioneer Ray Dolby.