A licensing company has issued a $10 million lawsuit against its former executives. They allegedly swiped the idea for launching a Hulk Hogan-themed beer from them.
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According to Law360, Carma HoldCo Inc filed a lawsuit in Illinois that alleges the company's former president, Chad Bronstein, chief legal and licensing officer Nicole Cosby, and their company, Rahm Inc, violated state and federal trade secret laws when they used proprietary information and intellectual property belonging to Carma when when launching Hulk Hogan's Real American Beer.
To cut through the jargon, Carma is accusing Bronstein and Cosby of poaching Hulk Hogan and starting his beer brand. Apparently, they knew that Carma was making moves to do that themselves. Apparently, Carma made a deal with Hulk Hogan and one of its brand ambassadors in February 2023. The deal heavily involved both Bronstein and Cosby.
Hulk Hogan's Beer Pinched By Terminated Officials
The suit said that "Bronstein, as president and chairman of the board of directors, was intimately involved in and familiar with Carma's plans for Hulk Hogan's Real American brand beer."
The original idea included getting August and Billy Butch involved.
"During this time, Carma was in active discussions with August and Billy Busch, who controlled a trademark for the Real American Lager brand name, to form a joint venture in relation to Hulk Hogan's Real American brand beer."
Months later, Carma terminated Bronstein and Cosby as Carma were not happy with how they handled arranging the deal. After this, they attempted to continue working with Hulk Hogan, but he became uncooperative. Carma believes Bronstein and Cosby continued to work with Hulk Hogan behind the company's back.
"Plaintiff is informed and believes, and based thereon alleges, that after their termination, Bronstein and Cosby continued to have their discussions with Hulk Hogan, his representatives, and August and Billy Busch concerning Hulk Hogan's Real American brand beer, and they solicited Hulk Hogan to cease his relationship with Carma and enter a business relationship with Rahm to sell Hulk Hogan's Real American brand beer," the suit continued.
Carma is seeing over half a million dollars from both Bronstein and Cosby. They're also after damages, restitution, and royalties. They finally want a court order to stop Bronstein and Cosby from using its trade secrets and to stop them from selling products they believe use stolen trade secrets
