As the PGA Tour vs. LIV Golf Antitrust Case Drags On, Is a Settlement the Endgame?
Where does the LIV Golf vs. the PGA Tour case stand, with almost a year to go before the trial date of Jan. 8, 2024—which may shift later in 2024 as the two sides continue to disagree more than agree?
Like a chess match, every move has a purpose, but not all moves are necessarily important.
If you are lucky enough to have watched "The Queen’s Gambit" on Netflix, you would've learned that a chess match has an opening, a middle and an endgame.
The duration of each is not defined and sometimes is not really determined until months or years later.
In the current case, the endgame is far, far away, so no reason to discuss that now.
The opening game started in August of last year, when 11 former PGA Tour players, led by Phil Mickelson, filed an antitrust complaint against the PGA Tour.
The filing of the complaint was the beginning and since then there has been a motion for a Temporary Restraining Order, to allow certain LIV golfers access to the FedExCup playoffs, which the court ultimately denied.
As most of the original 11 golfers dropped out of the suit, LIV Golf joined as a party to the original suit.
In the early stages, the PGA Tour went on the offensive and filed a counterclaim in September, which is basically a complaint against LIV Golf for tortious interference in its contracts with its players.
Once the counterclaim was filed, each side was suing the other. That may have been the moment we reached the end of the beginning stages, putting the middle game fully in place.
The past four months have featured a back-and-forth or what many would call "legal posturing" that includes motions and answers filed about discovery issues, questions on certain rules of civil procedure or, in some cases, the expansion of the parties.
All told, the current court docket has 240 different entries as of this week, with many of the entries spanning numerous pages. The material is as dry as day-old toast.
The most recent filings come in regards to adding the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (“PIF”) and Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan as counter-defendants, due to their extensive control over LIV Golf as demonstrated in recently produced documents that came through discovery.
For roughly the last two months the PGA Tour has been laser-focused on PIF and Al-Rumayyan’s involvement and control over LIV Golf, and their activities even before LIV's creation that interfered in professional golf and the PGA Tour’s business.
This desire to learn more first came about when certain discovery documents outlined the PIF’s and Al-Rumayyan’s involvement, which included a plan called Project Wedge that first reported by Sports Illustrated and then followed up by the New York Times in an extensive report.
Ultimately the PIF and Al-Rumayyan were looking at three options to get into professional golf, with the third gaining total control of the game.
As an aside, according to Bloomberg, the PIF previously explored a bid for F1 with a price tag of $20 billion.
These discovery documents only scratch the surface of the PIF’s and Al-Rumayyan’s activities, so the PGA Tour has been asking for more information, which neither PIF or Al-Rumayyan have been willing to produce, citing jurisdiction issues and Saudi law which precludes them from participating in discovery.
This week, the PGA Tour filed a motion asking the court to allow them to amend their counterclaim and to include PIF and Al-Rumayyan as defendants.
Presumably, if the court grants the motion and PIF and Al-Rumayyan become defendants, they will be forced to provide the documents the PGA Tour has been seeking about their activities that they believe will show they have illegally interfered with the PGA Tour’s business.
As with many of the other motions or filings, this motion was just another salvo in the middle game, which goes on until a trial -- that's when the endgame starts.
Much will happen over the next 12 or so months, including the likelihood that the trial date will be moved to April 2024 if not later.
Even District Judge Beth Labson Freeman, the judge in the case, suggested the possibility just recently in a court hearing.
But as indicated earlier, just because something is filed by either side does not mean it has such importance that it should require our attention.
One last thing to keep an eye on is the possibility that PIF and/or Al-Rumayyan try to close this down.
Neither is interested in disclosing any information to the PGA Tour or, ultimately, the world.
At the same time, they would be violating Saudi law as they have claimed through their attorneys at White & Case, who were specifically brought in to argue the PIF’s and Al-Rumayyan’s position earlier this month.
Or, if they are forced in some way by the court to participate in discovery in either the original complaint of antitrust against the PGA Tour or in the counterclaim against them by the Tour, it’s possible that a settlement of some kind may be their preferred course of action.
Neither the players nor LIV Golf have much to gain from an antitrust victory, except potentially a financial reward.
It’s also clear that the Tour would likely drop its counterclaim and be willing to settle if the original complaint was dropped; again they see no real benefit to pursuing their claims if peace was now an option.
These are all future possibilities that have not been part of the discussion, but certainly could become an option depending on the outcome of the discovery requests and amending the counterclaim to add PIF and Al-Rumayyan as defendants.