Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund says a ruling directing its chief to provide information in an antitrust fight between LIV Golf and PGA Tour Inc. is an “extraordinary infringement” on the kingdom’s sovereignty.
(Bloomberg) —
Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund says a ruling directing its chief to provide information in an antitrust fight between LIV Golf and PGA Tour Inc. is an “extraordinary infringement” on the kingdom’s sovereignty.
The Public Investment Fund, which bankrolls the upstart LIV, asked a California federal judge late Tuesday to reverse a federal magistrate’s order granting PGA’s request to force LIV’s backer and its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, to testify under oath and produce documents.
PIF and Al-Rumayyan “are a sovereign instrumentality of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and a sitting minister of the Saudi government, and they cannot be compelled to provide testimony and documents in a US proceeding unless their conduct — not LIV’s or anyone else’s — is truly the ‘gravamen’ of the case,” their lawyers said in a filing, referring to the essence of a case.
US District Judge Beth Labson Freeman, who is overseeing the dispute, on Wednesday allowed lawyers representing Saudi Arabia to file a friend-of-the-court brief backing PIF and Al-Rumayyan’s objections to the subpoena ruling. A subpoena from a private party, the PGA, against a foreign sovereign and its senior official acting in a government capacity is “unprecedented,” the kingdom’s lawyers said in their brief.
A PGA spokesperson declined to comment on the filing.
Read More: Saudi Fund Boss Ordered to Testify in PGA-LIV Golf Suit
US Magistrate Judge Susan Van Keulen found in a February order that PIF was actively involved in LIV’s operations. Such conduct amounts to commercial activities that are excluded from sovereign immunity protection under US law, Van Keulen ruled. Attorneys for the $676 billion Saudi fund had argued that sovereign immunity shields the fund and Al-Rumayyan from providing evidence in US courts.
Van Keulen’s order “created a genuinely unprecedented commercial activity exception to the common law immunity applicable to foreign governmental officials,” the fund’s attorneys said in Tuesday’s filing. Moreover, it recognizes that the fund and its chief would violate Saudi law that safeguards confidentiality of certain government documents and imposes fines on those who furnish classified records, they said.
PIF also asked Freeman to halt the gathering of all evidence until she rules on its challenge to Van Keulen’s order.
The PGA has sought to gather more material to support its claims that LIV unlawfully pushed players to break contracts with the US-based tour by offering them exorbitant sums of money.
The fight between the two tours began when 11 professional golfers, including Phil Mickelson, Talor Gooch and Matt Jones, sued the PGA in August for suspending them after they signed on with LIV. LIV joined the suit a month later, prompting Mickelson, Gooch and others to withdraw from it. LIV claims PGA is a monopolist seeking to sabotage a competitor in the professional golf industry.
PGA countersued, alleging that LIV is competing unfairly by luring players with millions of dollars to breach their contracts.
The case is Jones v. PGA Tour Inc., 22-cv-04486, US District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose).
(Adds details on Saudi Arabia’s filing and PGA response)
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