by failing to properly support the brand. But he went a lot further than that, also leveling accusations of racism and claiming Diageo had treated his product line “worse than others because he is Black.”In the company’s first response to the lawsuit on Tuesday , Diageo’s lawyers didn’t exactly hold back, either. They called the Diddy’s lawsuit a “bad faith, sham action” filed by a star who had “amassed nearly one billion dollars” from their partnership but now wanted to “extract” billions more.
“Mr. Combs’ bad-faith actions have clearly breached his contracts and left us no choice but to move to dismiss his baseless complaint and end our business relationship,” the company wrote. “Mr. Combs has repeatedly undermined our partnerships and threatened to publicly defame Diageo if we did not meet his unreasonable financial demands.”
“Cloaking itself in the language of diversity and equality is good for Diageo’s business, but it is a lie,” Combs’ lawyers wrote. “While Diageo may conspicuously include images of its Black partners in advertising materials and press releases, its words only provide the illusion of inclusion.” “Without its inflammatory rhetoric and false accusations, the complaint is nothing but a garden-variety, and eminently arbitrable, suit alleging breach of contract,” Diageo wrote.