Plaintiffs in the Johnson and Cirkunov antitrust cases have filed a Motion for Attorney Fees for allegedly not complying with a subpoena to provide documents in its lawsuits against Zuffa.
The subpoena requested documents in 12 categories from the sport agency’s management and representation of UFC MMA fighters. After negotiating with Dominance’s attorneys, they withdrew 4 of the 12 requests. Plaintiffs claim that Dominance MMA has not provided a single document. Dominance MMA contends that there are concerns regarding privacy. Even after a court hearing, the sides still differ on the
From our February 25th post.
Plaintiffs filed an Order to Show Cause holding Dominance in contempt for not producing documents in the discovery process. As a result Plaintiffs’ request that Dominance be ordered to produce the documents and pay attorneys fees for bringing the motion. According to Plaintiffs, they claim that they had met and conferred with the attorney for Dominance, but received pushback on production of documents from Ali Abdelaziz.
Dominance’s attorneys argue that the parties had met and conferred (mandated process whereby the parties are required to discuss the discovery issues prior to filing a motion with the court). Dominance claims that the process stalled “when legitimate issues arose concerning third-party confidentiality, lack of control over independent contractors’ devices, and the adequacy of safeguards for confidential information belonging to third parties.” Specifically, they cite fighter contracts and disclosure of pay information. The filing notes several fighters objected to the release of the information.
Attached to the lawsuit were exhibits of letters written between plaintiffs and attorneys for Dominance MMA.
Plaintiffs are requesting $268,815.00 in legal fees for work done from the end of August 2025 to April 1, 2026. In addition plaintiffs have expended “at least $1,940.18 in unreimbursed costs and expenses in connection with the work.” Below is the declaration of attorney and paralegal work on the discovery battle with Dominance MMA.
Yet, the below letter from Dominance attorneys requests $32,725,000 in fees and costs.
In a second letter, Dominance MMA’s attorneys cite the transcript in the Court hearing where Judge Boulware opines that the cost of document production would be $10K. In addressing plaintiffs’ attorney Judge Boulware states that “above $10,000 you have to pay for everything…” This is reiterated in their letter to plaintiffs (second screenshot).
Payout Perspective:
There’s a big letter writing campaign that I will save the reader from having to go through but the gist is that plaintiffs are pressing Dominance for documents to which they have not yet provided. Dominance has indicated it has 126,000 documents that it must look through prior to sending over to Plaintiffs for review. The holdup, according to Dominance, is logistics and costs. Plaintiffs are frustrated because they are in need of this information but it is slowing down their overall cases against Zuffa. Since this is a third-party (plaintiffs aren’t suing them directly), plaintiffs find themselves in a position where they will be paying for most of the production. However, they argue that since it appears Dominance is in noncompliance for not abiding by a subpoena, they should pay for the extra effort it has taken to obtain the information. MPO will continue to follow.
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