The PGA Tour filed a motion in court Tuesday to add Saudi Arabia‘s Public Investment Fund as a defendant to its antitrust lawsuit against LIV Golf.
The motion, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, called for adding the Public Investment Fund along with Yasir Al Rumayyan, who serves as the governor of the fund, to the lawsuit due to their “active and central role” in getting golfers to abandon the PGA Tour.
“Recently produced documents confirm that PIF and Mr. Al-Rumayyan played an active and central role in orchestrating these breaches for their own benefit and are equally liable for the harm caused to the TOUR,” PGA lawyers said in the filing.
The Public Investment Fund owns roughly 93% of LIV Golf, according to court filings.
A group of ex-PGA golfers who fled to LIV filed the initial lawsuit against the PGA Tour after the tour suspended them for participating in LIV events. LIV Golf eventually joined the legal challenge, which alleged the PGA Tour was using its dominance in the pro golf industry to prevent competition and discouraging those affiliated with the tour from doing business with LIV.
The PGA Tour later filed a counterlawsuit alleging LIV Golf colluded to get players to breach their contract with the tour and join the competing golf tour.
“LIV intentionally and knowingly caused these players to breach their contractual obligations to the TOUR by mispresenting TOUR contracts; inducing these breaches by offering highly lucrative contracts that make it impossible for players to comply with their TOUR contracts; and providing extensive indemnification and hundreds of millions of dollars to compensate LIV players for these breaches,” lawyers for the PGA Tour said.
The Saudi-backed golf tour announced last week it had reached a deal with the CW Network to broadcast its 14 events in 2023 after the events were livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube in 2022.
Source : MSN
