Zuffa names Bellator in lawsuit

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news;_ylt=AipqW.vG.UHrseYBD2Xu1GM9Eo14?slug=ki-ufcsuit072910

LAS VEGAS – Zuffa LLC, the parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and World Extreme Cagefighting, has filed suit against Ken Pavia, one of the sport’s most prominent fighter agents, alleging Pavia passed along trade secrets and confidential Zuffa documents to rival mixed martial arts promotion Bellator.

The suit alleges that Bellator used the documents to help run its business.

Pavia is the founder of MMA Agents and represents in excess of 50 fighters, more than 40 of whom are now or have been in the past under contract to Zuffa.

Bellator, which is a co-defendant, is a fledgling MMA promotional company that has earned rave reviews for the entertaining fights it made during its first two seasons, which were broadcast initially on ESPN Deportes and then on FOX Sports Net, among other networks.

According to the suit, filed Wednesday in Clark County District Court, Pavia delivered confidential contracts, including fighter agreements, to Bellator after being asked to do so in a July 4 email to him from Bellator founder Bjorn Rebney.

In a text message to Yahoo! Sports on Thursday, Pavia wrote “I want to get a better understanding of this before I comment.” Rebney referred calls to Bellator attorney Patrick English, who said he didn’t know enough about the suit to comment.

An email which Zuffa’s lawsuit alleges is from Rebney to Pavia on July 4 was attached as an exhibit to the 16-page suit. In it, Rebney writes, ” … You’ve been great about sending us ‘All’ of the seminal docs from the UFC, so that we can re-do them and implement them for Bellator.”

Later, the email Zuffa alleges to have been written by Rebney continues, “Please list each in terms of what it is for and how the UFC uses them/implements them. … Then I’m going to have our team Monday re-type them and we will sufficiently alter them such that they will appear to be ours and not theirs.”

The response that is purported to have come from Pavia is brief and says, in its entirety, “Still I (sic) vegas. May take 24 hours to organize as some forms go to the guys in my office.”

Pavia was in Las Vegas for UFC 116 on July 3 and the alleged email is dated July 4. The email addresses that are in the emails Zuffa included are the email addresses for Rebney and Pavia.

Also included in the suit are unnamed persons and corporations that Zuffa alleges participated in breach of contract. According to the suit, “The improper disclosure of Zuffa’s operations documents and confidential information by Pavia, MMA Agents, and the Doe and Roe Defendants constitutes a distinct act of dominion wrongfully exerted over Zuffa’s personal property.”

It further states, “The improper use by Bellator of Zuffa’s operational documents and confidential information in order to conduct its competing business operations constitutes a distinct act of dominion wrongfully exerted over Zuffa’s personal property.”

Zuffa seeks actual and punitive damages and a permanent injunction barring Bellator or Pavia from using Zuffa’s assets, including its intellectual property.

sucks for Bellator

How did the UFC get these emails?

great question wolf same thing i was wodnering

and here I was starting to like Bellator. Maybe Askren will get into the UFC sooner than expected, Bird.

Wolfgangsta wrote:

How did the UFC get these emails?

Great question.

It is called investigating. They own a detective firm that handles all sorts of stuff from casinos to sports. So I am not surprised they could find out.

Those emails may not hold up in court. This may just be a ploy to keep them in check and cast a bad light on them.

who is that foxy chick about godzilla?

Zuffa and UFC are gay anyways. I hope Bellator can bust their ballz some how and counter suit for 890 million.

Birdofthad wrote:

who is that foxy chick about godzilla?

are you talking about logan?

Is this surprising?

Bellator: Zuffa lawsuit "a big pile of nothing," company moving forward undistracted

While Zuffa, LLC – the parent-company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and World Extreme Cagefighting – has traditionally been voracious in terms of protecting its product, Thursday night's revelation that the company was suing the Bellator Fighting Championships, as well as influential agent Ken Pavia, came as quite a surprise.

Bellator officials were just as taken aback, according to the company's newly hired attorney, Patrick English.

"I was asked to represent Bellator yesterday when they heard there had been a lawsuit filed," English told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "Originally, they had no idea what it was about. It was actually Kevin Iole who was kind enough to tell me what it was about."

It was combat sports journalist Iole's report on Yahoo! Sports that first sent shockwaves through the MMA community. Iole outlined the details of Zuffa's lawsuit – filed in Clark County, Nevada, and a copy of which MMAjunkie.com has since obtained – which alleges that Pavia and Bellator "conspired to misappropriate Zuffa's confidential information and trade secrets in an effort to unfairly compete against Zuffa in the MMA marketplace."

While English doesn't deny that certain documents were shared, he insists that the lawsuit was hardly necessary and that Bellator officials did not participate in any wrongdoing.

"They weren't, per se, confidential UFC documents that were being talked about," English said. "It was very simple. Bellator was interested in checking on forms that the UFC typically uses in order to see if it was missing anything in terms of its own forms. The types of forms that we're talking about, by and large – there's a form that the UFC uses making sure that the fighters don't use the same colored trunks. There's forms that notify them that they're not supposed to have sponsorship stuff on their attire. There was a form that dealt with termination of contracts. Those are not confidential documents, and the bulk of what we're talking about is that.

"We're not talking about proprietary information, meaning information that would include things like confidential financial information or anything like that."

Of course, as the UFC's representatives readily admit in the complaint, they really aren't fully aware what was shared between Pavia and Bellator, hence the lawsuit. The complaint alleges that the documents may have included "promotional agreements, bout agreements, sponsorship forms, extension letters, injury forms, and the like."

As Zuffa representative Donald Campbell, Esq., a partner in the Las Vegas-based firm Campbell & Williams, told MMAjunkie.com, "We intend to conduct a very intensive and thorough investigation and hold all of the parties engaged in wrongdoing fully accountable to the full measure of the law."

The email

At the center of the lawsuit is a particularly concerning email from Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney to Pavia.

The full (un-edited) email reads:


Ken,

Tim and I know that you've been doing great about sending us "All" of the seminal docs from the UFC, so that we can re-do them and implement them for Bellator.

Can you please re-send emails with those attachments. Literally list them 1-TBD.

Please list each in terms of what it is for and how the UFC uses them/implements them.

Please also make sure they are attached and correspondingly listed.

Then I'm going to have our team Monday re-type them and we will sufficiently alter them such that they will appear to be ours and not theirs.

If you can get this over to us late today, that would be great.

Thanks,

B


While some MMA observers questioned the authenticity of the email, English didn't claim the correspondence was a forgery in any way. Instead, he simply believes the documents in question should not create concern – and he's quite happy to share them all with Zuffa's counsel.

"The bottom line is this: Despite a rather inflammatory email that Bjorn sent out, Bellator has not received – in the bulk of what Ken Pavia sent – confidential information," English said. "I can understand why the UFC would be upset given the email, but I reached out for them to explain exactly what Bellator did receive, and I would hope they'll understand once they understand exactly what was transmitted and why.

"Bellator hasn't actually used anything it was sent. In fairness to the UFC, they don't know that. I'm willing to share with them exactly what that is, and I think that will allay their concerns at the end of the day."

While the natural question asked by many is, "Where did the UFC get the e-mail?", English said he's not concerned.

"It certainly wasn't through Bellator, but it doesn't really matter," English said.

"There will be no financial damages"

Understandably, Rebney is currently unwilling to discuss the pending litigation directly. But the Bellator CEO did state that with his promotion's third 12-week season less than 14 days away, he's not letting the lawsuit provide any distraction.

"We're working 20 hours a day right now," Rebney said. "We've been relentless. ... We've just been going nuts. I think we've got a spectacular show coming up with the first show to kick everything off. There are fights on the show that won't even make the TV show that I'm excited to see. Yves Edawrds-Luis Palomino and some of the other fights that aren't even going to be on the show are going to be great.

"We've just been working like dogs – going nuts and getting it all together. It never ceases to amaze me how much effort goes into 12 shows in sequence on a weekly basis. I actually wish something would disrupt the amount of time we're putting into it."

Of course, when the news first came out, many MMA messageboards erupted with doomsday scenarios for Bellator. Rebney believes nothing could be farther from the truth.

"I've never given it a thought," Rebney said. "We're in a better position right now than the company has ever been in since the day I founded it – since the first day I came up with the idea when I was sitting in my living room in Brentwood, Calif. We're in a stronger position right now than we've ever been in. We're in a good spot. I'm very comfortable with where we are right now.

"I'm by no stretch of the imagination calm just because we've got so much going on and we've got so much happening in terms of production. We're constantly changing and adjusting and adapting and trying out new stuff, but we're in a great spot. Everything is going extremely well. We're thrilled with where we are. We're thrilled with what's going on in terms of TV. We're in a very, very good spot right now."

English also stated despite Zuffa's request for compensatory and exemplary damages, as well as attorney's fees and court costs, Bellator's financial well-being is not in peril.

"It's very simple: there will be no financial damages because it's a big pile of nothing," English said. "I don't mean this to be critical of the UFC. The UFC simply doesn't know what was sent as of the time they filed this – and frankly, right now. There's absolutely no difficulty sharing with the UFC exactly what was sent and dealing with any concerns they've got.

"It's much ado about nothing. If they knew, they wouldn't have filed the lawsuit, I'm sure. In this particular case, the easiest thing to do is to be forthright and truthful and discuss it with them. It's that simple."

"There's nothing really to fight about"

Meanwhile, Pavia's standing with the UFC is unclear. The MMA Agents boss wasn't available for comment when contacted by MMAjunkie.com, but one of his many clients, Todd Brown, was officially announced as a UFC newcomer today and will compete at next week's UFC 117 event.

Requests for comment from UFC president Dana White were not immediately returned, and Zuffa's counsel declined to speculate on the current condition of the relationship.

"That's a question better left addressed by Mr. Pavia," Campbell said.

Both Zuffa and Bellator representatives confirm they have yet to address each other directly, but English suggests the issue should be settled quickly and painlessly.

"It should be because there's nothing really to fight about," English said. "I've called into them. I have a letter into them. I know they've got a show this weekend. They know me. These are people that I've worked with over the years in other capacities.

"This is nothing more than a company making sure it wasn't missing any bases."