Ayesha Curry is a food and lifestyle personality and the wife of Golden State Warriors basketball star Stephen Curry. She formed a business partnership with celebrity branding company, Flutie Entertainment, which has now apparently deteriorated and has resulted in a $10 million breach of contract lawsuit.
Flutie Entertainment alleges in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles that the five years it spent with Ayesha Curry brought “significant and unprecedented results.” It claims it helped Curry land a Food Network show and a hosting role on ABC’s “Great American Baking Show,” as well as producing a best-selling cookbook and launching several successful food-based businesses. It alleges that Curry terminated the relationship and in the eleven months since, Curry has denied Flutie its share of proceeds from the businesses, deliberately slowed down new enterprises, took away a top employee and “essentially gutted and devalued Flutie Entertainment’s interests.”
Flutie Entertainment’s lawsuit alleges that when it began working with Ayesha Curry, she had a small social media and food blog following and was known primarily as Stephen Curry’s wife. It alleges that it was “clearly and undeniably instrumental in helping her achieve success.” It alleges that when Curry ended the relationship, Flutie had done major work with her developing partnerships, sponsors and legal and financial framework for Homemade, a company through which Curry would offer home meal kits along with other kitchen and lifestyle products, and Yardie Girl, an entertainment production company. The lawsuit alleges Curry and her co-defendants have stalled on moving forward with the projects to deny Flutie its share in these projects.
Curry’s attorney responded through a statement: “Ayesha Curry terminated her business relationship with disgruntled manager Robert Flutie in early 2019. We are confident that the legal process will find his accusations nonsensical and completely unfounded.”
The resolution of this matter will not only depend on the parties’ conduct, but the contents of the agreement between the parties. Such an agreement is critical in determining the parties’ obligations and responsibilities to each other. As a litigator, I too often see businesses without adequate agreements with their strategic partners or adequate partnership or operating agreements (with internal business partners). This firm has substantial experience litigating these types of matters where a dispute occurs between business partners or with a business’ strategic partners.
