PGA Tour countersuit claims LIV Golf induced golfers to breach present contracts by providing ‘astronomical sums of cash’

The PGA Tour filed a countersuit in opposition to LIV Golf on Wednesday, claiming the Saudi Arabian-financed circuit has interfered with present contracts it had with its members.

The counterclaim was filed as a part of the PGA Tour’s response to LIV Golf’s federal antitrust lawsuit in opposition to the PGA Tour, through which LIV Golf claims the PGA Tour illegally suspended gamers for competing in LIV Golf tournaments and is wielding its monopoly energy to squash competitors.

The Tour claims that LIV Golf has executed a marketing campaign to pay its gamers “astronomical sums of cash to induce them to breach their contracts with the Tour in an effort to make use of the LIV Gamers and the sport of golf to sportswash the latest historical past of Saudi atrocities and to additional the Saudi Public Funding Fund’s Imaginative and prescient 2030 initiatives.”

The PGA Tour argued that LIV Golf officers have suggested gamers that their agreements with the PGA Tour are unenforceable, whereas getting into into their very own agreements with LIV gamers, “which impose contractual restrictions on the LIV Gamers extra onerous in scope and length than any of the Tour laws they problem.”

The movement included a textual content message that LIV Golf CEO and commissioner Greg Norman purportedly despatched to Spain’s Sergio Garcia, through which Norman wrote: “They can’t ban you for sooner or later not to mention life. It’s a shallow risk. Ask them to place in writing to you or any participant. I guess they do not. Joyful for anybody to talk with our authorized group to higher perceive they haven’t any likelihood of implementing.”

Within the movement, the PGA Tour claims that its Participant Handbook and Match Laws, which allowed it to droop greater than two dozen members for competing in LIV Golf occasions, contribute to its success and generate increased sponsorship and broadcast revenues, which end in elevated prize cash and advantages for its gamers.

“Via this lawsuit, LIV asks the Court docket to invalidate these wholly official provisions with the stroke of a pen after inducing the remaining Participant Plaintiffs to violate those self same laws with a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in Saudi cash,” the PGA Tour movement stated. “The Participant Plaintiffs which have remained within the case — eight of the unique eleven gamers have withdrawn their names from this lawsuit already — need solely to complement themselves in full disregard of the guarantees they made to the Tour and its members once they joined the Tour.”

On Tuesday, six-time main winner Phil Mickelson and three different gamers — Ian Poulter, Hudson Swafford and Talor Gooch — requested a choose to be eliminated as plaintiffs within the antitrust case. 4 different gamers who had been initially a part of the lawsuit — Abraham Ancer, Carlos Ortiz, Pat Perez and Jason Kokrak — are now not concerned within the case as properly.

Bryson DeChambeau, Matt Jones and Peter Uihlein stay as plaintiffs within the case, together with LIV Golf.

“The Tour has made these counterclaims in a clear effort to divert consideration from their anti-competitive conduct, which LIV and the gamers element of their 104-page criticism,” LIV Golf stated in a press release Thursday. “We stay assured that the courts and the justice system will proper these wrongs.”

The U.S. Division of Justice has opened an investigation into the PGA Tour’s alleged monopolistic actions in coping with LIV Golf and its gamers, which the Tour has denied.

“[T]right here is not any precise damage to Plaintiffs right here, and no violation of the legislation,” PGA Tour attorneys argued within the movement. “LIV, by its personal admission, has succeeded in attracting quite a few elite skilled golfers to take part in its new league. LIV has held quite a few occasions with full fields and has introduced a full season for 2023. Each LIV and the Participant Plaintiffs baked the monetary value of their suspensions into LIV’s exorbitant signing bonuses, making the Participant Plaintiffs entire. Furthermore, whereas LIV and the Participant Plaintiffs problem the Tour’s media rights and conflicting occasions polices as anticompetitive, LIV imposes comparable — certainly much more restrictive — situations on its gamers, and the Participant Plaintiffs have agreed to them.

“This case is just not about unfair competitors — if anybody is competing unfairly, it’s LIV, not the Tour. As a substitute, it’s a cynical effort to keep away from competitors and to freeride off of the Tour’s funding within the improvement {of professional} golf. Plaintiffs’ allegations are baseless and completely with out authorized benefit.”