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Jay-Z And David Ortiz Settle Their 40/40 Beef

By Kathy Iandoli

Jay-Z is a master of squashing beefs, even with baseball players.

Last April, Boston Red Sox player David Ortiz stole Jay-Z’s 40/40 club brand name to open his own club in the Dominican Republic, titled “Forty-Forty”. Despite using the name instead of the numbers, it’s obvious there was an intent to mislead tourists by naming the club as such. Ortiz aka “Big Papi” apparently visited Jay-Z’s (who has a song “Hey Papi”) nightclub in NYC and was inspired to start his own in his native land of DR.

Jay slapped Ortiz with a $5 million dollar lawsuit for trademark infringement. Per HipHopDX.com, Ortiz’s legal team viewed the lawsuit as “extremely excessive.” However, The Daily News reports today (March 29th) that the two have come to an agreement, and the lawsuit is just a few ink signatures away from being resolved. The paperwork was sent for filing yesterday (March 28th).

The agreement arrives as Federal District Judge Richard Berman suggested the two come to a settlement on their own. That has reportedly happened. “The case has been settled in principle,” one of Jay-Z’s attorneys Peter Raymond stated. “We have agreed on the outlines of a settlement and need to reduce it to writing.” Per Judge Berman, it “sounds like a sensible outcome.” Once the paperwork is officially filed, the suit will be dismissed within 30 days.

While the lawsuit sounded justified to begin with, we can only wonder if Jay, a die-hard Yankees fan would have pushed so hard to sue Ortiz had he not been a player for the Red Sox.

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