Adidas shareholders launch class action lawsuit over Kanye West’s problematic behavior

thefader.com:

Adidas shareholders have filed a class action lawsuit against the company, claiming bosses at the sportswear knew about Kanye West’s unprofessional and offensive behaviour years prior to the company ending its partnership in 2022 over his antisemitic comments.

The Guardian and Rolling Stone both report that the shareholders also accuse Adidas of failing to mitigate their financial losses when calling time on the Adidas and Yeezy partnership. “We outright reject these unfounded claims,” Adidas said in a statement responding to the lawsuit, adding that the company “will take all necessary measures to vigorously defend ourselves against them”.

Read Next: Kanye West deactivates Instagram The lawsuit references West's 2018 statement that slavery "sounds like a choice" as evidence of his long history of making offensive remarks and that his conduct had been discussed internally at Adidas.

Speaking that same year, former chief executive Kasper Rorsted said that, “There clearly are some comments we don’t support.