PGA Tour's counterclaim against LIV Golf escalated by adding defendants | Golf Today | Golf Channel

There's some significant news overnight in the legal battle between the PGA Tour and Livgolf. Judge Beth Labs and Freeman, California's Northern District, granted a request by the PGA Tour to add the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and its governor Yasser El-Rumyan as co-defendants in a counter suit in which the tour alleges Livgolf interfered with its player contracts. Last week, the same court ordered the Saudis to comply with the discovery process in Livgolf's antitrust suit against the PGA Tour, something they have been strongly resisting. And here to break all of this down for us on the importance of this decision is Professor Jody Balsam, who teaches sports law at Brooklyn Law School. Jody, thanks for joining us. It's been well established, the reluctance on the Saudi Public Investment Fund and its governor, Yasser El-Rumyan, to be subject to discovery in the US courts. What importance does this decision have on that reluctance of theirs? The court has now allowed the PGA Tour to add the Saudi Public Investment Fund and Mr.

El-Rumyan as parties to the litigation. Once they are parties to the litigation, they are subject to the court's greater authority to compel discovery of parties and to compel discovery that's far broader. So how massive a ruling is this for the PGA Tour? Well, the significance of the ruling goes beyond the ability to obtain depositions and documents from the Saudi parties. It now puts them in the position of being potentially liable to the PGA Tour in their counter in the counterclaim for tortuous interference with contract. And I think it will also have a given opportunity for the Saudis to live golf to do a profound reevaluation of their entire litigation strategy. I don't think they ever contemplated that the Public Investment Fund would actually be a party to this lawsuit. And they may decide that it's wiser at this stage to consider settlement of all claims, including the antitrust claims, rather than proceed in American courts.

How do you think all of this actually plays out? Is there an appeals process here, Jody, that we're likely to get bogged down in? Because the judge has shown a certain degree of impatience with any delays in the trial schedule, even to this point. Well, procedurally, what happens next is that the Saudi parties can now raise certain defenses that were not available to them as a non-party simply being subjected to a subpoena for documents, now being dragged into the suit as parties, they may want to claim a judge's testimony. They want to claim a jurisdictional defense that the court cannot exert its power over them as parties. That defense is not likely to have much traction given that a similar argument was rejected the right of foreign government to avoid process in American courts. A similar argument was rejected in the context of the motion to compel non-party discovery. The same commercial activity exception that permitted non-party discovery of the Saudis would be available to the court to impose its jurisdiction over the Saudis as parties. Lawyers for the PIF have indicated that they will ask a federal judge to review the ruling, and that's supposed to take place on Friday.

Could you give us a little more clarity on that process and your expectations for what may unfold? Sure. Well, we now have two rulings that have gone against the Saudis that they may seek reconsideration of. One was back when they were non-parties, the ruling to compel discovery. They had announced that they would seek reconsideration of that ruling in front of Judge Lapson Freeman, and now they have Judge Lapson Freeman's own ruling that they should be participating in the case as parties. Neither of those rulings, if and when they are appealed, are likely to gain any relief from their consequences for the Saudis. Both rulings are well-reasoned and have substantive merit. In fact, the initial ruling to compel discovery as non-parties may well be moot at this point, given that Saudis are now parties.

So, their various procedural avenues from here are very unwelcoming, and they need to face the facts that they are going to be substantively involved in this litigation for the long term unless they see a pathway to an early termination through settlement. What's going to happen this Friday is described as a case conference, meaning the judge now has a new landscape in front of her with the Saudis as parties, and she's going to press all parties on how quickly they can move towards trial with a January 2024 trial date. And the give in that date is limited, and it's not a good look for the Saudis to seek to advance that, to delay that date further, given live gobs protestations that it's essential for their business plan to have a resolution of their antitrust claims. Jody, most of the documents in this case remain sealed, but the judge did unseal several details that relate specifically to the day-to-day control that the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and Yasser Al-Rumiyan exert over the day-to-day activities of live. Why do you think that detail was unsealed? Well, in the judge's ruling on the motion to seal or unseal documents, she basically drew a dividing line between information and documents that would impair the Saudi Fund's ability to compete in investment markets and information that the public has an interest in and that the Saudis had no compelling interest to conceal. So, for example, she continued under seal the information that related to how the Saudi Investment Fund structures its investments, the indemnities it provides, the degree to which it requires decision-making to involve it, but it unsealed, the court unsealed documents that relate specifically to its day-to-day involvement in live golf. And those, she found the public had a more compelling interest in disclosure than the Saudis did in concealing it.

Jody, in talking with some friends who are golf fans, who've lightly followed the case, for them trying to distill all the information, it's like reading hieroglyphics for them, they basically just said to me, all right, what's the timeline for when we're going to have some resolutions? So with what just occurred, if you could forecast potential windows, if you think it can be three, six, 12 months, and look at a couple different avenues just so we have a ballpark understanding of when we could actually see the PIF, the Saudis, and the PGA Tour maybe spurred to some final action. Well, at the moment, we are looking at a May deadline for all party discovery. That means all depositions and all document exchanges need to occur by then. That would include the Saudis' secret classified information. They claim that their own national laws prohibit them from turning over. So if push comes to shove, and they absolutely have to disclose that information, and they feel that there are impenetrable barriers to doing so, that May 2024 deadline seems to be a timeframe for any early resolution of this case. But if they find a way to participate in discovery that satisfies the court's authority here, then we're looking at a January 2024 date for trial.

But my prediction, frankly, is that there's no way the Saudis let this case go forward if they stay as parties, and they're going to try to dispose of it without a public hearing. Which would make sense given everything we know that seems to be ruminating behind the scenes. Jody, thanks as always. I'm sure we're going to be seeing your face on golf today again very soon.

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