Adidas Can’t Freeze Ye’s $75 Million Yeezy Marketing Payment
- Judge says Adidas didn’t show that money was likely to be lost
- Contract dispute over canceled partnership is in arbitration
Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 shoe.
Photographer: Paco Freire/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty ImagesAdidas AG lost a court bid to freeze $75 million it paid to Ye, the rapper and designer formerly known as Kanye West, to market Yeezy shoes.
At a Tuesday hearing, US District Judge Valerie Caproni in Manhattan rejected Adidas’s arguments that it needed a temporary restraining order to ensure that the funds remain available as its dispute with Ye over the blow-up of their partnership due to his antisemitic statements continues in arbitration.