May 22, 2014 VIA ECF The Honorable Ronald L. Ellis United States District Court for the Southern District of New York Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse 500 Pearl Street New York, NY 10007 Re: Walker v. Carter et al., No. 12 Civ. 5384 (ALC) (RLE) Dear Judge Ellis:

We represent Defendants UMG Recordings, Inc., The Island Def Jam Music Group, Roc-

A-Fella Records LLC, and Shawn Carter, p/k/a Jay Z (collectively, the UMG Defendants). We write regarding the scheduling of Mr. Carters deposition.

Mr. Carter is one of the most prolific and hardest-working businessmen and recording

artists in the world. This summer, among many other commitments, he is headlining a grueling 18-city North American concert tour with his wife, Beyonc Knowles, between June 25 and August 6. With the tour opening fast approaching, the next four weeks are already filled beyond capacity with production and business meetings and rehearsals. Preparing for a stadium tour is a non-stop effort. And this is all in addition to Mr. Carters usual duties as the CEO of several businesses, at least two scheduled product launches, and curating a first-of-its-kind, bicoastal, music festival in August.

For these reasons, Mr. Carter has offered August 28 or 29 as the first available dates for

his deposition. Plaintiff has rejected these dates and insists that Mr. Carter make himself available before June 25, regardless of his prior commitments. As set forth below, Plaintiff has no need to schedule an early deposition of Mr. Carter, who is an ancillary witness to the key issues in dispute. In contrast, scheduling an early deposition would unnecessarily burden and harass Mr. Carter. Accordingly, we respectfully request that Mr. Carters deposition be scheduled for August 28 or 29. See Patrnogic v. U.S. Steel Corp., 43 F.R.D. 402, 403 (S.D.N.Y. 1967) (granting motion for protective order postponing deposition where date sought would impose hardship on party deponent and actual, as distinguished from [the] supposed, need for oral examination on the date sought was minimal).

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The Hon. Ronald L. Ellis May 22, 2014 Page 2

The central issue in this case is the existence of a purported contract Plaintiff claims he entered into with Defendant Damon Dash in 1995 regarding the logo for Roc-A-Fella Records. For allegedly drawing a logo, Plaintiff claims he is due an exorbitant contractual royalty of $7 million. Although Plaintiff contends that he and Dash put his supposed contract in writing, he is unable to produce the alleged document because it was purportedly lost or destroyed.1

Plaintiff has no proof of the existence of this supposed contract, and Mr. Carter has no

knowledge of it. Plaintiff does not contend that Mr. Carter was present when Plaintiff supposedly negotiated, wrote up, or executed the alleged contract. Nor does he contend that Mr. Carter asked him to, or saw him, work on any logo design. Rather, Plaintiff contends that he negotiated his alleged agreement with Dash and Dash alone. Plaintiffs complaint contains over a dozen allegations detailing the alleged negotiation and execution of the supposed agreement, and Mr. Carter is identified in none of them.

Accordingly, Plaintiff has proffered only one reason to depose Carter at all: to determine

where [Carter] says the logo came from and what interactions he had with Plaintiff. (Tr. of Apr. 15, 2004 Telephone Conference, Dkt. No. 86, at 12:19-20.) Those issues are subsidiary to the existence of the supposed contract, and Plaintiff has articulated no reason why he needs to address them with Mr. Carter in June as opposed to August. Among other things, Plaintiff knows that third-party witness Adrien Vargas will provide testimony regarding Vargass (and not Plaintiffs) creation of the logo design. Plaintiff is deposing Vargas on June 18, and Plaintiff will obtain the testimony he ostensibly seeks on that subject then.

During the parties meet and confer, Plaintiffs counsel provided a different and specious

reason for scheduling Mr. Carters deposition next month; he speculates that the deposition will reveal an insufficient search for documents and that discovering this supposed deficiency in August, and not June, will delay the case. Plaintiffs counsel has no good faith basis for this charge, which he bases solely on the innocuous fact that Mr. Carter did not produce (1) contemporaneous documents evidencing the logos creation nearly two decades ago or (2) documents responsive to requests to which Mr. Carter has objected. Neither point implicates search issues. Mr. Carter did not produce nearly twenty year-old documents regarding the creation of the logo design because he would not have retained such documents, if he ever had them. And there is nothing suspect about Mr. Carter not producing documents responsive to requests to which he has validly objected, even assuming such documents exist. Plaintiffs counsel ignored these points during the parties discussions, insisting instead that Mr. Carter could not discharge his production obligations unless lawyers at this firm represented that they personally reviewed every single document within Mr. Carters possession, custody, or control, going back 20 years, regardless of subject matter or volume. That, of course, is not required. In any event, if Plaintiff wishes to challenge the sufficiency of Mr. Carters production, he should

1 Plaintiffs story of a lost contract is an artifice that Plaintiff is using, in bad faith, to make up fanciful contentions regarding the terms of this supposed document and to evade both the statute of frauds and the statute of limitations, at least at the pleading stage. For example, in order to claim that his 2012 lawsuit is timely, Plaintiff contends that the contract provided for payment of a 2 percent royalty on Roc-A-Fella Records sales, but only in one lump sum in 2006, after ten years of first use, or just within New Yorks six year limitations period.

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The Hon. Ronald L. Ellis May 22, 2014 Page 3 do so before, and not at, a deposition. Accordingly, Plaintiffs hypothetical production issue does not support scheduling Mr. Carters deposition when he is not available.

Plaintiffs counsel also said he was uncomfortable with a potential gap between the

completion of other depositions and a deposition of Mr. Carter. That is not a basis to impose an unnecessary burden on Mr. Carter when he is not available. Plaintiff waited nearly six years to bring this suit. He suffers no prejudice from scheduling the deposition a few weeks later than his counsel would prefer. In any event, it is not clear that such a gap will exist. There are at least three additional depositions to schedule and there may be more once Plaintiff responds to Defendants interrogatory responses regarding persons with knowledge.

While an early deposition is not needed by Plaintiff, it would impose an unnecessary

burden on Mr. Carter. Preparing and sitting for a deposition during the nonstop intensity of rehearsing for, performing on, and traveling for the tour is not feasible and would create a significant hardship. In the tight available time frame between June 2 (the date Plaintiff noticed for the deposition) and June 24, in addition to tour preparation, Mr. Carter has myriad prior commitments for his numerous professional endeavors, and it would be damaging to his vast business operations and ventures to miss or cancel them.2 In light of Plaintiffs improper efforts to sensationalize this case, we refrain from providing further detail regarding Mr. Carters commitments and unavailability, but are prepared to do so in camera if the Court wishes.3

The Court should deny Plaintiffs request for a deposition of Mr. Carter prior to June 25

and direct that Mr. Carters deposition be scheduled for August 28 or 29.

Respectfully submitted, Cynthia S. Arato

2 Many June dates are not available for other reasons as well. The parties will be attending, preparing for, or traveling to other depositions on June 11, 12, 16-19, 24, and 25. And the parties have agreed not to conduct depositions during the first week in June to accommodate my need to prepare for and argue an appeal on June 5 in the Appellate Division, First Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. 3 Plaintiffs counsel has issued numerous press releases inaccurately portraying Mr. Carter as the sole or main defendant in this case in order to obtain coverage of this action. See Rapper Jay-Z Sued for $7 Million Over Unpaid Royalties for Roc-A-Fella Logo, Law Offices of Gregory Berry, Esq. (July 19, 2012), Judge Denies Jay-Zs Motion to Dismiss Roc-A-Fella Royalties Lawsuit, Law Offices of Gregory Berry, Esq. (Aug. 15, 2013), Jay-Z Loses Bid To Avoid Depositions; Logo Suit Will Now Proceed To Discovery, Law Offices of Gregory Berry, Esq. (Mar. 20, 2014), all three available at http://www.gregoryberrylaw.com/news/index.html. Plaintiffs counsels publicity has yielded sensationalized accounts every time. See, e.g., Bronx clothing designer says Jay-Z owes him $7 million in unpaid royalties for creating Roc-A-Fella's label logo, N.Y. Daily News (July 12, 2012), http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/jay-z-owes-7m-roc-a-fella-records-logo-lawsuit-dwayne-walker-article-1.1113455; Ex-Kasowitz Attys Client Keeps Jay-Z Royalties Suit Alive, Law 360 (Aug. 16, 2013), http://www.law360.com/articles/465406/ex-kasowitz-atty-s-client-keeps-jay-z-royalties-suit-alive; Jay-Z ordered to give deposition in Roc-A-Fella logo lawsuit, New York Post (Mar. 27, 2014), http://nypost.com/2014/03/27/jay-z-ordered-to-give-deposition-in-roc-a-fella-logo-lawsuit/. The press even recently reported on a discovery letter that Plaintiffs counsel submitted to this Court, likely the result of Plaintiffs counsels behind the scenes maneuverings. See, e.g., Jay Z accused of unprofessional conduct, New York Post (Apr. 29, 2014), http://pagesix.com/2014/04/29/jay-z-accused-of-unprofessional-conduct-in-lawsuit/.

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