Earlier this week, the plaintiffs in the UFC Antitrust Lawsuit have filed a response in opposition to Zuffa’s motion seeking to file supplemental authority to support its Motion to Exclude Plaintiffs’ expert Dr. Hal Singer.
Zuffa is seeking to include the recent U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Ohio v. American Express in support of its Motion to Exclude which was filed at the beginning of May. The U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion on June 25, 2018.
Zuffa filed a motion requesting the opportunity to file supplemental authority on July 5th. It explains the reason why it would like the Court to consider the case:
The Supreme Court decided Ohio v. American Express Co., — S. Ct. –, 2018 WL 3096305 on June 25, 2018. As explained in Zuffa’s proposed Notice of Supplemental Authority, this decision clarified that in light of the procompetitive benefits of certain vertical restraints, a plaintiff must define a relevant market to evaluate the anticompetitive effect of an alleged vertical restraint even when using direct evidence. Id. *8 n.7. Plaintiffs argue in their Opposition to the Singer Daubert motion that defining a relevant market is unnecessary when evidence of direct effects on compensation is presented. Accordingly, Amex will inform this Court’s decision on whether to grant Zuffa’s Motion to Exclude the testimony of Dr. Singer in light of this new development in the law that affects the currently pending motion. Plaintiffs are not prejudiced by this filing, as this additional legal authority was unavailable prior to the Daubert briefing, Plaintiffs will receive timely notice through this filing, and Zuffa has not delayed in presenting this authority to the Court or Plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs argue in their opposition brief that Dr. Singer has defined the relevant markets and applies them to his opinion.
Plaintiffs Response in Opposition to Zuffa’s Motion to File Supplemental Authority by JASONCRUZ206 on Scribd
Dr. Singer was retained by the Plaintiffs as an expert economist to opine, in part, that the compensation of all proposed class members is adversely affected by the UFC’s anticompetitive practices. He also to identify the relevant markets in which this occurs.
The Supreme Court case is detailed here. In a 5-4 decision in favor of American Express, the Court determined that Amex’s anti-steering policies did not violate antitrust law. The case specifically involves policies set by some credit card banks that prevented merchants from steering customers to use cards from other issuers with lower transaction fees, forcing merchants to pay higher transaction fees to the banks. The case was based on the relationship between antitrust law and two-sided markets. Thus, you might infer the parallels with the UFC case where the issue of the defining markets are being challenged.
The court in the UFC lawsuit may or may not take the AmEx case into consideration but Zuffa had a right to file the motion and the Plaintiffs had an opportunity to advise why it did not apply in this case. MMA Payout will keep you posted.
Leave a Reply