Commercial Metals Co.’s ex-CEO conceded during a federal antitrust jury trial Monday that the Texas rebar giant pushed micromill-maker Danieli Corp. into a “hands-off California” exclusivity provision barring Danieli from developing most Golden State rival mills days after discovering Pacific Steel Group was planning to build a mill in Southern California with Danieli.
Barbara Smith’s testimony came during the second week of a jury trial that kicked off Oct. 22 in Oakland, California, in a high-stakes antitrust lawsuit that San Diego, California-based steel fabricator PSG first launched in October 2020, which was two months after Danieli reneged on plans to work with PSG to develop a new mill north of Los Angeles.
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Pacific Steel Group is represented by William C. Price of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, and Benjamin D. Brown, Daniel McCuaig, Nathaniel D. Regenold, Jared Dummitt and Daniel A. Small of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.
A federal judge in Las Vegas has preliminarily approved a class action settlement requiring Ultimate Fighting Championship to pay $375 million to fighters who said they were underpaid for their bouts for years.
Lawyers for the mixed martial arts fighters called the decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware II a “monumental achievement that will get significant relief to hundreds of deserving MMA fighters.”
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The case is Le v. Zuffa LLC, U.S. District Court for the District Of Nevada, No. 2:15-cv-01045.
For the class: Eric Cramer of Berger Montague; Benjamin Brown of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll; and Joseph Saveri of Joseph Saveri Law Firm
A Nevada federal judge on Tuesday gave his blessing to a $375 million settlement resolving a group of former UFC fighters’ claims that the organization for years underpaid match participants, the fighters’ counsel confirmed.
During a hearing in his Las Vegas courtroom, U.S. District Judge Richard F. Boulware II granted preliminary approval to the proposed deal, which would net many of the fighters more than $1 million each, according to plaintiffs’ attorney Eric L. Cramer of Berger Montague, who said they are “extremely pleased” with the decision.
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Benjamin D. Brown of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, another attorney for the plaintiffs, on Wednesday added, “I must commend the MMA fighters who helped expose UFC’s anticompetitive behavior by bringing this lawsuit. Becoming an elite MMA fighter is a dream come true for many athletes. However, the reality is that it’s a brutal business.”
“Under UFC, many fighters were left broken and broke,” he said. “The settlement we helped MMA fighters achieve recovers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost compensation from the UFC.”
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The fighters are represented by Eric L. Cramer, Michael Dell’Angelo, Ellen T. Noteware, Patrick F. Madden, Najah A. Jacobs and Joshua P. Davis of Berger Montague, Richard A. Koffman, Benjamin D. Brown, Daniel H. Silverman and Daniel Gifford of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Joseph R. Saveri, Kevin E. Rayhill, Christopher K.L. Young and Itak Moradi of Joseph Saveri Law Firm LLP, Don Springmeyer of Kemp Jones LLP, Robert C. Maysey and Jerome K. Elwell of Warner Angle Hallam Jackson & Formanek PLC, and Crane Pomerantz of Clark Hill PLC.
Fox Corp. media mogul Rupert Murdoch and other Fox empire figures have urged Delaware’s Court of Chancery to toss as unwinnable a stockholder suit seeking to make them liable for billions in potential damages for defamatory statements alleging 2020 election conspiracies on network and affiliate broadcasts.
The motion to dismiss made public Monday argued that the derivative suit, filed by seven benefit or pension funds and a Fox Corp. stockholder, fails to show — among other shortcomings — an utter failure of oversight and knowing breach of duty required to overcome Delaware charter protections for company directors.
Among the damages sought in the suit, filed in May 2023 and last amended in September, is an award to cover a $787.5 million company settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in April 2023 on Dominion claims for $1.6 billion in damages. That suit claimed that Fox personalities relentlessly trumpeted baseless allegations about the exploitation of Dominion voting machine flaws in a bid to tip the 2020 election, jeopardizing the Dominion business and brand.
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Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster in December named the New York City Employees Retirement System and four other New York pension funds, the state of Oregon and the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund as lead plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs are represented by Joel Friedlander, Jeffrey M. Gorris and Christopher M. Foulds of Friedlander & Gorris PA, Ellen Rosenblum and Brian A. de Haan of the Oregon Attorney General’s Office, Julie Goldsmith Reiser, Molly J. Bowen and Brendan Schneiderman of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC and Katherine Lubin Benson of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP.
With a decision on the UFC antitrust lawsuit settlement looming Tuesday, another group of 52 fighters submitted statements in hopes of convincing the courts to approve the $375 million payout.
Judge Richard Boulware in Nevada is expected to issue a ruling soon on the preliminary settlement agreement that was submitted to settle the first UFC antitrust lawsuit that was filed all the way back in 2014. The decade-long case covered fighters who competed in the UFC from 2010 to 2017.
A second lawsuit covering fighters from 2017 to present is still working towards a potential trial date, although it’s possible a separate settlement could be reached before that happens.
The latest round of support for the settlement including a number of former UFC champions including recently retired strawweight Carla Esparza as well as former bantamweight king Renan Barao.
Perhaps the most in-depth response came from retired strawweight competitor Felice Herrig, who fought five times during the class period represented by the first UFC antitrust lawsuit. In her statement, Herrig detailed both physical and financial hardships that she’s suffered through during and after her time spent competing in the UFC.
“Fighting for the UFC was the achievement of what I thought was my dream, but the reality is after a lengthy career I left with a worn-down body, severe depression, and nothing to show for my years competing at the top of the sport,” Herrig wrote. “I still battle depression to this day and am angry that I saw so little reward for what I provided to the UFC.
“Throughout most of my UFC fight career, I was going into debt and borrowing money from family to fund fight camps and then paying off this debt with my purses. As a result of this debt, I and other peers frequently take fights while injured to pay off the debt from training camp that was already incurred. At other times, fighters are pressured to take fights on short notice or against last-minute replacement opponents who they have not prepared for and face the dilemma of taking a risky fight for little reward or enduring through a lengthy period on the shelf with no fight offered, your contract extended and no income.”
Herrig detailed her struggles with weight cutting and a number of injuries she suffered, which continued to plague her in retirement.
“Throughout my career, my ideal weight to compete at was 125 pounds, but with weight divisions in the UFC at 10-pound increments, this would have left me with the choice of fighting undersized at my natural weight or enduring grueling weight cuts to get down to 115 pounds for weigh-ins,” Herrig said. “In one instance, I was asked to do 12 hours of media obligations the day before weigh-ins while cutting weight. I was exhausted, starving, and experienced an adrenaline dump soon after my fight started that left me unable to move. I now believe that fighters promote the UFC and not vice versa—fighters are interchangeable, disposable and expendable when MMA is not operated as a sport.
“While fighting for the UFC and during my MMA career, I suffered many significant injuries including a torn ACL, MCL, PCL and meniscus on my right knee. After almost a year and with my insurance coverage running out for the initial occurrence, my knee was not fully healed, but I took a fight anyway, and discovered I needed additional surgery on my meniscus. This knee continues to give me problems to this day and will require ongoing maintenance and physical therapy for the rest of my life.”
One-time UFC title challenger Jessica Eye, who retired from competition in 2022, detailed the struggles she’s faced since leaving the sport. In particular, Eye says the physical toll fighting took on her brain and body have made it that much tougher to move forward with a new career where she’s no longer getting punched in the face for a living.
“While fighting for the UFC, I suffered many significant injuries including to my left elbow which required Tommy John surgery, removal of my gall bladder which became inflamed during fight camp, kidney failure and sepsis following a grueling weight cut that caused permanent damage, and a laceration to my forehead that required 20 stitches to close,” Eye wrote. “During my career, I also suffered dozens of concussions. I fear that during my career I have suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI) and am noticing symptoms common with TBI and CTE including anxiety, depression, irritability, sensitivity to light, headaches and memory loss.
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The attorneys representing the fighters have now submitted more than 150 testimonials from athletes past and present in hopes of swaying the judge to approve the settlement. In the initial paperwork filed with the preliminary settlement agreement, the plaintiffs stated that the fighters involved in the $375 million settlement “would recover (on average), after all fees and costs are deducted, $250,000.”
After a decade of litigation, MMA fighters will receive “life changing” money.
WASHINGTON, DC– Last night, a Nevada federal court granted preliminary approval of a landmark $375 million settlement between a certified class of elite professional mixed martial art (MMA) fighters and Zuffa, LLC dba Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Pending final approval, the settlement will resolve claims in Le, et al. v. Zuffa, LLC, the first of two wage suppression antitrust class actions against UFC.
The settlement resolves claims that for years the UFC engaged in an anticompetitive scheme to suppress compensation for elite MMA fighters. Specifically, the fighters claimed that, among other things, the UFC unlawfully eliminated competition from rival MMA promoters and maintained and unlawfully enhanced its monopsony power in the market for MMA fighter services.
“First, I must commend the MMA fighters who helped expose UFC’s anticompetitive behavior by bringing this lawsuit. Becoming an elite MMA fighter is a dream come true for many athletes. However, the reality is that it’s a brutal business. Under UFC, many fighters were left broken and broke. The settlement we helped MMA fighters achieve recovers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost compensation from the UFC,” said Benjamin D. Brown, managing partner of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and co-chair of its Antitrust practice.
“We are extremely pleased by the court’s decision. It is a monumental achievement that will provide significant relief to hundreds of deserving MMA fighters,” said Eric L. Cramer, chairman of Berger Montague and co-chair of its Antitrust department. “We honor our brave representative plaintiffs who fought for this result for ten years. And we look forward to pursuing significant business changes and more damages in our second antitrust case against the UFC.”
Plaintiffs claimed that as UFC got stronger, due to restrictive fighter contracts, it was able buy up competition, such as World Fighting Alliance in 2006, World Extreme Cagefighting in 2006, and Strike Force in 2011, thereby becoming the only option for fighters to work. Plaintiffs claimed that 90% of elite professional MMA fighters were eventually under contract with UFC.
First filed in 2014, Le, et al. v. Zuffa LLC, 2:15-cv-1045 (D. Nev.), faced years of litigation in court. In 2021, other MMA fighters filed a second class action, Johnson, et al. v. Zuffa, LLC, et al., No. 2:21-cv-1189 (D. Nev.). In August 2023, after nearly a decade of litigation, the court certified the “bout class” in the Le case. In its 80-page ruling, the court detailed the “anticompetitive, coercive conduct” and nature of “Zuffa’s exclusionary contracts and their restrictive terms.”
The plaintiffs are represented by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, Berger Montague, and The Joseph Saveri Law Firm.
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About Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC
Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, a premier U.S. plaintiffs’ law firm, with over 100 attorneys across eight offices, champions the causes of real people – workers, consumers, small business owners, investors, and whistleblowers – working to deliver corporate reforms and fair markets for the common good.
About Berger Montague
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Marriott International Inc. has agreed to pay $52 million to nearly every U.S. state and bolster its data security practices to resolve parallel investigations by state attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission over a massive data breach at the hotel’s Starwood-branded properties.
A coalition of attorneys general from the District of Columbia and every state except California announced Wednesday that they had reached a deal with Marriott to settle claims that the hotel chain had violated various state consumer protection laws, personal information protection obligations and breach notification statutes by failing to implement reasonable data security practices and remediate data security deficiencies when attempting to use and integrate Starwood into its systems following Marriott’s acquisition of the brand in 2016.
Hackers had infiltrated Starwood’s computer system in July 2014 and remained there undetected until September 2018, leading to the breach of records containing contact information, dates of birth, reservation information and a limited number of unencrypted passport numbers and unexpired payment card information belonging to roughly 131.5 million Starwood guests, according to the attorneys general.
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In addition to the settlements announced Wednesday, Marriott is also facing multidistrict consumer litigation over the Starwood data breach that was the focus of the state attorneys general case.
A Maryland district court in December reinstated certification for eight classes of potentially hundreds of millions of customers who accuse Marriott and its information technology provider Accenture LLC of failing to take reasonable steps to protect personal information exposed in the Starwood data breach, on the heels of the Fourth Circuit last year vacating an earlier district court order certifying these classes.
Marriott has again appealed the dispute to the Fourth Circuit, arguing that the terms in its customer agreements would have prevented plaintiffs from bringing the action entirely.
Amy Keller of DiCello Levitt LLP, James J. Pizzirusso of Hausfeld LLP and Andrew Friedman of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, who are co-lead counsel in the case, stressed in a statement provided to Law360 that Marriott’s settlement with regulators doesn’t resolve the long-running MDL.
“We also recently uncovered that Marriott’s representations to consumers and the public concerning encryption of the stolen data were patently false, leading to a court order requiring Marriott to correct statements on its website.
“We will continue to prosecute this case until we achieve justice for the individuals victimized by Marriott’s false data security promises and recklessness,” they said.
A San Francisco federal judge Wednesday preliminarily approved Thomson Reuters’ $27.5 million deal to settle a certified class action alleging that the information conglomerate violated the privacy rights of 40 million Californians by secretly collecting their data to sell “cradle-to-grave dossiers.”
U.S. District Judge Edward M. Chen told the parties during a hearing held in San Francisco that he considered the settlement to be fair and the fees “at first look” to be “within a reasonable range.”
The case brought by two San Francisco Bay Area residents focused on a data collecting software product called Clear that Thomson Reuters sells to law enforcement and businesses.
“At no time has Thomson Reuters sought consent from class members before appropriating and selling their personal data through its Clear products, nor does it have a process for doing so,” the suit said. “The class members received no compensation for Thomson Reuters’ use of their identities.”
As part of the deal, Thomson Reuters agreed to establish a nonreversionary $27.5 million fund from which payments will be made to Californians who submit a claim. The fund also covers the cost of the plaintiffs’ court-approved expenses and attorney fees.
Thomson Reuters will take several steps under the settlement that will give California residents more control over the information available about them through Clear, and those changes will be required for four years, according to the motion for preliminary approval. First the company will create and maintain a website for California residents to learn about Clear, including “the types of customers who use it, and the types of data available through it.”
Thomson Reuters will also no longer require California residents to provide a driver’s license to remove certain data from Clear. The company will also forward direct data removal requests from California to its “network of data suppliers so that they too can remove information from the sources that supply Clear,” the motion said.
Under the settlement, Thomson Reuters pledged to also make Clear’s default settings more “privacy protective,” including changing a default setting that provided information available about “relatives, associates, licensed drivers, property owners, and neighbors of the report subject.”
These changes will take place within six months of final approval of the settlement and be in place for four years, according to the preliminary approval motion, filed with the court on Aug. 29.
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Plaintiffs and the class are represented by Andre M. Mura and Ezekiel S. Wald of Gibbs Law Group LLP and Geoffrey A. Graber and Karina G. Puttieva of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.
A group of UFC fighters on Monday sought preliminary approval of a $375 million agreement that would net many fighters over $1 million each and settle their Nevada federal court dispute with UFC over what they say is a history of suppressed wages.
The $375 million deal would resolve the case filed by fighter Cung Le in 2014, but leave the organization fighting similar accusations in a lawsuit filed by Kajan Johnson in 2021. The initial $335 million settlement would have resolved claims in both cases. However, U.S. District Judge Richard F. Boulware II rejected the idea, expressing concern about the dollar figure and that it would resolve lawsuits at different points in the legal process.
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If approved by the court, 35 fighters will get the highest payout of more than $1 million and around 100 will receive more than $500,000, Cramer said. The remaining fighters will net approximately $50,000 to more than $250,000. There are 1100 total fighters in the Le class.
More than 50 fighters submitted declarations voicing their support for the settlement Monday.
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The fighters are represented by Eric L. Cramer, Michael Dell’Angelo, Ellen T. Noteware, Patrick F. Madden, Najah A. Jacobs and Joshua P. Davis of Berger Montague, Richard A. Koffman, Benjamin D. Brown, Daniel H. Silverman and Daniel Gifford of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, Joseph R. Saveri, Kevin E. Rayhill, Christopher K.L. Young and Itak Moradi of Joseph Saveri Law Firm LLP, Don Springmeyer of Kemp Jones LLP, Robert C. Maysey and Jerome K. Elwell of Warner Angle Hallam Jackson & Formanek PLC, and Crane Pomerantz of Clark Hill PLC.
A national investigative nonprofit on Monday lodged discrimination complaints against more than 200 California landlords and their representatives — including major real estate brokerages — alleging they illegally refused to rent to Section 8 voucher holders.
The Housing Rights Initiative filed the complaints, based upon an undercover investigation, with the California Civil Rights Department.
The nonprofit organization is asking the agency to look into penalties against the 203 companies and individuals, saying they violated a state law that makes it illegal to deny tenants solely because they’d pay with a voucher. It’s also lobbying for more state funding to adequately enforce the law, which the group and other advocates contend hasn’t been done since the rules took effect in 2020.
“There’s nothing more tragic than when a family gets … an opportunity to get a home and they can’t because real estate isn’t following the law,” said Aaron Carr, executive director of the Housing Rights Initiative. “It’s time for California to get tough.”
The Section 8 program, named after a section of the federal Housing Act, is one of the U.S. government’s most powerful tools to keep rental housing affordable and to fight overcrowding and homelessness.
Generally, tenants pay the equivalent of about 30% of their income on rent with the voucher covering the rest. Unlike public housing, the subsidy can move with tenants so that they can find housing with private landlords. But that’s easier said than done.
Households can spend years on waiting lists just to receive a voucher. When they get one, advocates say, landlords often refuse to rent to them under the disproven belief they’re more likely to be bad tenants, which can reflect negative stereotypes of poor people, as well as people of color, who make up a majority of Section 8 participants.
Amid a long-running housing crisis, California tried to stop those denials when it joined a handful of other states and passed a “source-of-income” law that makes it illegal to discriminate against tenants who pay with Section 8 and other subsidies. Types of discrimination include refusing to rent to such tenants at all or treating them differently in other ways, such as charging them higher security deposits.
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“If people who receive Section 8 … can’t get legitimate rental units, then they’re going to be unhoused,” said Smith, whose organization, along with the law firms Cohen Milstein and Handley Farah & Anderson, is representing the Housing Rights Initiative in its state filings.