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 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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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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