UFC preparing legal team to fight suit
Chief legal officer Kirk Hendrick told The American Lawyer that the UFC has begun the process of “interviewing several well-respected law firms” for the role of lead counsel.
Earlier this week three fighters were named as plaintiffs in a massive class-action lawsuit against the UFC. Now UFC chief legal officer Kirk Hendrick confirmed to The American Lawyer that the promotion has begun the process of interviewing several well-respected law firms for the role of lead counsel.
Hendrick will be working with UFC COO Ike Lawrence Epstein, and Senior VP of Business and Legal Affairs and Assistant General Counsel Michael Mersch in forming the antitrust litigation defense team.
Here are some of the litigators and firms reported to be under consideration.
William Isaacson • Boies, Schiller & Flexner
This fall, another group of plaintiffs lawyers submitted a bill for $45 million in legal fees and $5.3 million in costs after securing a key victory for former college athletes in an antitrust case filed against the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Among the firms with hands in that honeypot are Boies, Schiller & Flexner, where antitrust partner William Isaacson in Washington, D.C., teamed up with Hausfeld LLP’s Michael Hausfeld for the win on behalf of former college basketball and football players.
Isaacson just snagged his third Litigator of the Week honor for helping consumer electronics giant Apple beat back a $1 billion antitrust case in the Bay Area this week. That victory, like Boies Schiller’s August triumph over the NCAA, took place in a federal court in the Northern District of California.
Stephen Axinn • Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider
Three years ago, UFC hired antitrust boutique Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider to represent it in a Federal Trade Commission investigation into the organization’s acquisition of mixed martial arts rival Strikeforce, a deal handled on the transactional side by Milbank.
In conversations with a half-dozen lawyers familiar with UFC, Axinn Veltrop’s name was mentioned repeatedly as a potential member of any legal team put together by the organization.
Makan Delrahim • Brownstein Hyatt Farber & Schreck
Brownstein Hyatt Farber & Schreck, another firm with close ties to UFC and a large office in the company’s hometown of Las Vegas, has also been mentioned as stepping up as a contender for the antitrust defense crown. Brownstein Hyatt is UFC’s lobbyist of choice, handling advocacy work for the organization since at least 2008, according to records on file with the U.S. Senate. UFC has paid almost $2.5 million to the firm during that time—including $240,000 through the third quarter of this year—to advise on copyright piracy, Internet gaming and event-related issues.
Makan Delrahim, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s antitrust division who joined Brownstein Hyatt in 2005, is listed in the firm’s lobbying filings as one of those representing UFC. He declined to comment.
Earlier this week Bill “Gates” Isaacson and an associate delivered closing arguments in an antitrust class action against Apple that had gone on for a decade. Three hours later a federal jury in Oakland rejected claims that Apple used a 2006 software update to lock iPod customers into its iTunes store and thwart competition for portable tunes. Plaintiffs’ attorneys at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd had sought more than $1 billion in trebled damages under the Sherman Act. Instead they walked away with 10 years of litigation expenses.
For the good all parties involved, and the sport, let’s hope this fight doesn’t take ten years to come to resolution.