Zuffa has filed an objection to Plaintiffs’ Exhibit List Documents. The objection was filed this past Friday.
The parties in the UFC Antitrust Lawsuit have exchanged their exhibit lists according to the Court protocol in anticipation of August’s Court Hearing between experts.
Defendant Zuffa LLCs Object… by on Scribd
Zuffa objected to the use of 28 of Plaintiffs’ 771 exhibits. The company listed 5 reasons for the objections:
- Documents from an unrelated litigation that are inherently unreliable and/or untimely;
- Documents generated by third parties that are inherently unreliable;
- A document that is irrelevant to Plaintiffs’ experts’ opinions and confuses the issues to be considered;
- Documents that are inadmissible on the basis of hearsay; and
- Materials that were not timely disclosed
One of the documents that Zuffa objects to relates to a report prepared for the Golden Boy-Al Haymon lawsuit that was filed back in 2015.
One of the documents that Zuffa takes issue with is an expert report from Geen Deetz with respect to his work in the Golden Boy lawsuit. According to Zuffa, Plaintiffs’ expert economist, Dr. Andrew Zimbalist ignores the data produced by boxing promoter Golden Boy when opinion on revenue share paid to boxers. Instead, he uses data from the Deetz Report. That data, argues Zuffa, directly contradicts data produced by Golden Boy in this case, “which shows a drastically lower share of revenue paid to Golden Boy boxers.
The crux of the objection by Zuffa is that Dr. Zimbalist admitted that he could not independently verify the data produced in the Deetz report. As a result, Zuffa argues that the expert opinion of Dr. Zimbalist is therefore unreliable because the data he premises his opinion on has not been verified as true.
Additionally, there were 11 other documents that Zuffa objected to from the Plaintiffs’ Exhibit List that Zuffa claims are unreliable and not verified by Plaintiffs’ expert.
On other evidentiary grounds, Zuffa argues three more documents lack foundation as to an explanation on how they were prepared or were once again made by third parties not related to this lawsuit. This includes a presentation (“pitch deck”) prepared by a third party, Banco BTG Pactual S.A. which relates to the company providing Zuffa the document as “considerations about a potential sale of a minority stake of its operations in Brazil. Another is from Vinci Partners and is titled, “A View on a Zuffa’s Strategy Toward Brazil.”
Exhibit 14 by on Scribd
Exhibit 13 by on Scribd
There is also a “partial document” from Deutsche Bank regarding the international operations of the UFC.
Payout Perspective:
As we took a look at Plaintiffs’ objections to Zuffa’s Exhibit List, Zuffa takes its turn with its own objections. A lot of what hangs in the balance with these documents is the legal admissibility of them. The Federal Rules of Evidence govern these situations in which parties attempt to admit documents to use in support of their case. However, not all evidence can be used. There are proper ways to introduce documents and (as argued by Zuffa) certain arguments just cannot be used for lack of authenticity and/or unreliability.
The parties will get a chance to respond to each other’s objections. MMA Payout will continue to follow.
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