Hip-hop mogul SHAWN 'JAY-Z' CARTER has been named in a $5 billion lawsuit by a New York activist over the star's links to property developer BRUCE RATNER and Barclays Bank. Campaigner Clive Campbell and Brooklyn-based organisation Da Black Defense League claim Ratner's $4 billion project in the Atlantic Yards area - the construction of a new Barclays-sponsored arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team, of which both Ratner and Carter are shareholders - is directly profitting from the slave trade. The lawsuit claims Ratner and Carter, via their business links to the British banking firm, have "profited from the African Slave Trade and continue to profit from these gains, through a conspiracy dating back hundreds of years and continue to date to oppress Black people, enslave them, unlawfully deport them to all corners of the Earth".
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