This past May, boxing promotion company Golden Boy Promotions LLC filed an antitrust action against Alan Haymon, a manager for various boxers, including Floyd Mayweather. The action claims that Haymon violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, and several state laws, alleging that the manager acted as both a manager of boxers and a boxing promoter to monopolize American boxing. Laws such as the Ali Act are intended to separate boxing promotion from management so that fiduciary duties owed to the boxers are not put in conflict.
On August 31, 2015, defendant Haymon (and co-defendants) filed a motion to stay the antitrust litigation. The filing argued that the case is bound to an arbitration determination on whether the claims in the present case were released by a settlement agreement in a prior and separate lawsuit between a Golden Boy “parent company” and its former CEO, Richard Schaefer. While acting as CEO, Schaefer backed the promotion of numerous fights involving boxers managed by Haymon.
In opposing Haymon’s motion to stay, the plaintiffs contend that an arbitrator does not have jurisdiction to intervene because they were not parties to the prior settlement agreement. Haymon argues, however, that the plaintiffs are subsidiaries of the Golden Boy company involved in the prior settlement agreement, and that the plaintiffs should therefore be bound to the agreement as a party thereto. The court will decide on the issue following a hearing.