On Monday afternoon, Golden Boy Boxing filed a Statement with the Court regarding Arbitration notifying the Court and Canelo Alvarez that they will enforce the arbitration provision found in Canelo’s Promotional Contract. Later that evening, DAZN filed a similar Statement with the court and in addition requested that the lawsuit be dismissed.
The parties to the lawsuit filed in the Central District of California had until October 26th to file the disputed contracts and a statement as to whether they would impose arbitration provisions in the contract alluded to in their filings.
Citing the arbitration language in its contract with Alvarez, Golden Boy indicated that it would enforce the provision thus ending the lawsuit, at least with Oscar De La Hoya’s promotion.
Anticipating that Canelo would balk at compelling arbitration, Golden Boy argues that the dispute arises out of the contractual relationship the promotion has with its fighter. Thus, any issues DAZN may have with it or Canelo are not within the ambit of Golden Boy.
DAZN noted that it too would enforce its contractual right to submit this case to binding arbitration as well. In the alternative, it requested that the Court just dismiss the case in total.
Notably, the filing by DAZN indicates that Alvarez signed a deed at the same time he signed his Promotional contract with Golden Boy. The pleading states that Alvarez signed the deed acknowledging the contract “and agreed to comply with certain obligations under that contract (the “Deed”).”
Similar to Golden Boy, DAZN argues that all of Canelo’s allegations, even those not related to his Breach of Contract claims still come under the contract and therefore are subject to the arbitration provisions. Below DAZN argues that a tortious interference claim were “legitimate exercise of rights under the DAZN contract.” Further, even Canelo’s claim that he is entitled to a declaratory judgment freeing him from his contractual obligations would still be subject to the contract terms.
The DAZN contract, the Deed and the Golden Boy Promotional Contract have all been filed with the court but under seal meaning they are private and only can be seen by the Court.
In all likelihood, Canelo’s lawyers will now argue that the case should remain in Court rather than arbitration and that the claims brought by Canelo are outside the scope of the contract(s). This is where the possibility of a Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction would come into play. These remedies occur prior to final resolution of a case. If successful it would halt the move to arbitration pending hearing further evidence. Yet, Canelo has yet to do this.
Payout Perspective:
The big takeaway from the latest round of filings is that Canelo signed a deed with DAZN. While not mentioned by Canelo in his lawsuit, this would mean that he did have some sort of agreement yet did not bring a breach of contract agreement with DAZN. It would seem as though this Deed bound Canelo to abide by what it said and one might assume it allowed DAZN (among other things) pick, or at least, have some type of authority on who he could fight.
Arbitration provisions in contract are usually held up in Court so this litigation is coming to a head quickly. Canelo will need to persuade this court that his claims fall outside the scope of the provisions. MPO will continue to follow.
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