UPDATE:
Eric Cramer, one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs has issued the following statement to POST Wrestling regarding Judge Boulware’s latest ruling:
Plaintiffs respect the Court’s ruling rejecting the proposed global resolution of the Le and Johnson cases, and accordingly will be moving forward full speed on all fronts as directed by the Court. We now plan on ramping up preparations in Le for the imminent trial, and also will begin pressing forward with discovery in Johnson. At the same time, with the interests of our clients and the classes at the forefront, we are also open to reengaging with the UFC to see whether the parties could reach a settlement building off of the momentum achieved in the prior settlement, but working to satisfy the Court’s expressed concerns with that resolution. In particular, to eliminate several of the issues expressed by the Court regarding the prior proposed combined settlement of Le and Johnson, Plaintiffs believe the best path forward, if a new settlement becomes a possibility, is to attempt to resolve the two cases separately, focusing first on the Le case given its imminent trial date, and using the progress made to date as a jumping off point for further discussions. Thus, while Plaintiffs’ focus will be on preparing for trial, we are keeping an open mind with respect to a potential new resolution. At root, Plaintiffs want nothing more and nothing less than justice for the professional MMA fighters we have represented for more than ten years in the most efficient and effective way possible.
The $335 million deal that UFC made to eliminate a pair of antitrust lawsuits has been called off by a judge, sending the top MMA promotion and a pair of class action groups representing fighters back into legal battles.
District Court of Nevada Judge Richard F. Boulware denied a settlement which would have forced the promotion to make a nine-figure payout in exchange for avoiding trials that could cause higher damages and further expose the promotion’s business tactics.
The denied lawsuit puts the focus back on potential courtroom battles between the UFC and its fighters in the coming months and even years.
Judge Boulware has ordered that the older of the two cases – Cung Le et al. v. Zuffa, a case which represented fighters who competed in the UFC from 2010 to 2017 – to head back into trial at the tentative date of October 28. The precise details of the trial will be confirmed at a status conference on August 19.
Le v. Zuffa was just weeks away from a trial before the settlement talks put a halt to proceedings.
The second antitrust lawsuit – Kajan Johnson et al. v. Zuffa – will also appear at the status conference but does not have a set trial. The case had significantly made less progress in the court system and was notably nowhere near a trial before the potential deal between the UFC and fighters had sprung up.
Both lawsuits revolve around the antitrust argument that the UFC used “improper strategies to dominate the market for MMA fighter services,” as outlined in a case overview by plaintiffs for the Le v. Zuffa case
Judge Boulware had expressed “serious concerns” regarding the settlement prior to his ruling, arguing that both the financial and injunctive relief that fighters would be receiving in the deal hardly measured up to the changes they had demanded in the past. At one point he noticed that the Le class was only going to receive a fraction of the $800 million to $1.6 billion in damages that they were initially seeking in a trial.
Judge Boulware also wondered if the settlement would prevent UFC from implementing the same business practices in the future.
The Le v. Zuffa case going to a jury trial means higher risk for both parties. While the fighters could receive larger damages and farther-reaching injunctive relief than what the settlement initially presented, they also run the risk of leaving empty-handed.
“It’s really tough to know what a handful of strangers off the street in Las Vegas will think of all of this,” Combat Sports Law writer and practicing lawyer Erik Magraken told LowKickMMA about the possibility of a jury trial. “It’s a complicated case. You’re getting into contracts, you’re getting into economic evidence, you’re getting to a lot of stuff that people don’t deal with in their day-in-day-out lives.”
The stakes are undoubtedly high in both legal cases, especially since it might be the last time that fighters could try UFC for anticompetitive practices. Current UFC contracts prohibit talent from joining class action lawsuits against the promotion in the future, with the waiver even leaving a large chunk of fighters out of receiving relief from the Johnson case. While others would still be able to legally try the UFC – like a competitor promoter for example – the two current lawsuits might be a final round fighters get in a courtroom against the promotion’s business practices.
For a few months, it looked as if the lengthy saga of UFC’s antitrust cases would come to a sudden end with a new agreement. We now know that the fight is far from over.
