MPO Year in Review: No. 8 Bellator among the parties pulled into UFC Antitrust Lawsuit

Bellator MMA found itself a part of the UFC Antitrust lawsuit as the two companies were opposing sides in a discovery dispute.  Bellator sued the UFC in Los Angeles, but the Court determined that the dispute should occur in the Vegas court handling the case between former fighters and the UFC.

Prior to the filing of the lawsuit in February, Bellator claimed that it had “produced in excess of two thousand pages of responsive documents.”  Yet, the UFC argued that it needed more which included payouts for Bellator fighters, contracts and financial information.

Bellator Motion to Quash Subpoena by JASONCRUZ206 on Scribd

Zuffa Opposition to Bellator Motion to Quash by JASONCRUZ206 on Scribd

The Vegas court issued a ruling in June.  Some of the findings are below:

Bellator was ordered to produce:

1. A random sample of at least 20 percent of fighters under contract with Bellator between January 1, 2010 and the present. This will include any “amendments, modifications, side letters, or extensions that may exist with respect to any contract that is produced…”
2. Bellator will produced “Anonymized contracts” with a unique identifier although identifying information “may be redacted.”
3. The contracts “shall include the fighter’s gender, weight class, number of fights during term of agreements and any compensation to be paid.
4. The Court limited and modified Bellator’s request for production to the following
   1. A list of all MMA events it promoted or co-promoted from January 1, 2010 through the present.
   2. An unaudited profit and loss statement through the quarter ending March 31, 2017 which will include Revenue, Expenses, Operating Income and Net Income.

In addition, Matt Hume, had a similar discovery issue in which the Plaintiffs sought information from OneFC (Hume is an executive for the company).  A lawsuit in Washington state ensued in which a motion to compel the documents of Hume in July included a request for attorney fees in the amount of $21,000.  Similar to the Bellator lawsuit, the federal magistrate dealing with the dispute decided to kick the case to Vegas for the trial court to handle.  The Plaintiffs demanded certain documents from Hume’s involvement with OneFC as well as to take his deposition.

Motion to Compel Depo of Matt Hume by JASONCRUZ206 on Scribd

Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Motion to Quash Hume Subpoena by JASONCRUZ206 on Scribd

The Washington state court decided that it did not want to intervene in the lawsuit and kicked the case to Vegas.

These were not the only two discovery issues in this case.  Zinkin Entertainment was ordered to produce documents related to the representation of its fighters.  Top Rank also came to terms with the UFC in the lawsuit over discovery.

Zuffa was ordered to hand over a study on fighter pay.

In addition, Zuffa filed a lawsuit to dismiss the claims of plaintiff Nathan Quarry due to statute of limitations.  The Court has yet to issue an order on the motion.

The UFC Antitrust lawsuit was a “discovery year” for the case as depositions were taken and fact discovery took over most of the year.  As expected, there were fights over the discovery of documents which seemed to have resolved.  In 2018, we will see the expert discovery phase start as the wheels of justice move slow on the civil side.