By Chris Deubert
On October 6, 2021, judge Rakoff of the southern district of new York, dismissed a claim brought by one basketball agent, David Lee, against another, Raymond Brothers, Camiseta TSG 1899 Hoffenheim for allegedly stealing Lee’s client. Lee v. Raymond Brothers, 21-cv-4213, 2021 WL 4652336 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 6, 2021). In so doing, the court added to a body of situation legislation that is unsympathetic to agents’ complaints that one Camiseta Aston Villa FC more agent stole a client.
Some situations have failed where courts discovered the plaintiff agents’ stories unpersuasive. In Bauer v. Interpublic group of Companies, Inc., 255 F. Supp. 2d 1086 (N.D. Cal. 2003) and Champion pro Consulting Group, LLC v. effect sports Football, LLC, 116 F. Supp. 3d 644 (M.D.N.C. 2015) (disclosure: I was part of the team that represented Camiseta AS Monaco effect sports in this case), the courts approved summary judgment since the courts discovered that there was insufficient evidence that the accused agents had induced the players included to terminate their prior agents.
Yet maybe the most telling description of courts’ skepticism toward agent complaints comes from judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit (famous for his market-oriented technique to law):
There is in general nothing wrong with one sports agent trying to take a client from one more if this can be done without precipitating a breach of contract. That is the process understood as competition, which though painful, fierce, often ruthless, often Darwinian in its pitilessness, is the cornerstone of our extremely successful economic system. Competition is not a tort, but on the contrary supplies a defense (the “competitor’s privilege”) to the tort of incorrect interference. It does not privilege inducing a breach of contract — conduct usefully regarded as a separate tort from interfering with a service connection without precipitating an actual breach of contract–but it does privilege inducing the lawful termination of a contract that is terminable at will. Sellers (including agents, who are sellers of services) do not “own” their customers, at least not without a contract with them that is not terminable at will.
Speakers of Sport, Inc. v. ProServ, Inc., 178 F.3d 862, 865 (7th Cir. 1999).
Judge Rakoff echoed these beliefs in the Lee case:
Being a expert basketball player’s agent may itself be something of a hard competitive sport. While it is completely appropriate for a player to “steal” a sphere on-court, an agent’s stealing one more agent’s client by using the player added monetary inducement (in this case, any type of young man’s dream — a new pickup truck) may probably breach the players’ union rules. however such a “foul” does not provide increase to a legal claim, at least not in the scenarios of this case.
Lee, 2021 WL 4652336, at *1.
The courts’ determinations are in line with those of the NFLPA arbitration system, which normally handles agent versus agent disputes[1] (the NBPA guidelines do not). As I explained in a prior article, there has never been an arbitration decision in which an NFL player agent was discovered to have tortiously interfered with one more agent’s connection with a player.
As I’ve likewise written at other times, the agent market can be brutal. The reluctance of courts or arbitrators to step in only adds to the challenges.
[1] The Bauer case was brought before the NFLPA regulated agent versus agent disputes; as well as the Champion pro Consulting Group, LLC case relied on facts during the spring of 2011, when the NFLPA had decertified itself as a players’ union as well as therefore temporarily did not have the authority to control agents. The NBPA arbitration system does not govern agent versus agent disputes.
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