Attorneys for the PGA Tour plan to petition a federal judge to push back the start of an antitrust trial brought on by the LIV Golf Series.
The start of the trial is slated for January 2024.
Lawyers for the tour and LIV filed a joint motion Sunday to the U.S. District Court for Northern California asking for a case management conference. Tour attorneys want to ask for the extension of the discovery schedule — thereby pushing back the trial start — while LIV lawyers plan to argue against the delay.
“With the ink barely dry on the Tour’s last schedule extension request, the Tour returns with another attempt to blow it up and move the trial date set by this Court,” LIV’s attorneys wrote in the motion.
“(PGA Tour) seeks to delay a merits adjudication as long as possible in the hopes that it can drive LIV out of the market and thereby avoid scrutiny of its illegal behavior,” LIV attorneys wrote.
Meanwhile, the PGA Tour detailed at least four reasons they need a continuance in discovery, including “LIV, the current and former player plaintiffs, and several third parties have failed to produce key documents.”
“The nature of this case has significantly evolved since the Court set the current January 2024 trial date, from a case about individual golfers to a case about two competing golf leagues, substantially undermining Plaintiffs’ stated basis for an expedited case schedule,” PGA Tour attorneys wrote in the motion.
LIV brought the lawsuit, accusing the PGA Tour of monopolistic practices intended to stamp out the upstart league.
–Field Level Media