- “The Big3, a three-on-three basketball league featuring former NBA stars and co-owned by rapper and actor Ice Cube, is suing Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan for allegedly putting its lucrative relationship with the Republic of Qatar ahead of its far-less remunerative arrangement with the fledgling sports project.”
- “In a state court complaint filed in Manhattan on Thursday, Big3 contends that Quinn Emanuel inserted itself into litigation between the league and former commissioner Roger Mason, whom the league believed had aligned himself with Qatari agents seeking to gain control of the asset.”
- “Attorneys with Beys Liston & Mobargha in New York and Freedman + Taitelman in Los Angeles wrote that the law firm ignored “inescapable” conflicts of interest when offering to represent the league in a lawsuit brought by Mason, and used its involvement to shift the defense strategy away from a focus on Qatar’s conduct.”
- “‘Any rational person would question why a law firm would undertake the representation of a fledgling basketball league that might generate a few hundred thousand dollars in fees when the league was adverse to its existing Qatari clients who generate tens of millions of dollars in fees annually,’ the league said in its complaint. ‘The only logical answer is that Qatar wanted Quinn to undertake the representation… In effect, Quinn would become a spy for Qatar, a nation known for supporting terrorism and aligned with Iran,’ the complaint asserts.”
- “Quinn Emanuel aimed to recast the matter as a simple fee dispute. ‘No firm fights harder for its clients than Quinn Emanuel, and we fought hard for Big3. Unfortunately, Big3 doesn’t want to pay us for the work we did,’ the firm said in a statement. ‘After the firm pursued them to collect fees, Big3 waited until a week before the collection arbitration to file this fantasy-laden lawsuit. Big3 was fully advised about the firm’s other various representations and is simply trying to avoid paying its bills.’
More also via Above the Law: “Quinn Emanuel Law Firm Accused Of Serving As A Spy For Qatar“