New York Times files motion to unseal files in PGA Tour-PIF lawsuits

The antitrust litigation that has consumed professional golf for the last year is set to end as one of the conditions of the “framework” agreement announced last week between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, but the secrets the lawsuit attempted to uncover could still be at risk of becoming public.

The New York Times filed a motion in U.S. District Court Friday to unseal files in the antitrust and counterclaim lawsuits, citing both First Amendment and common law standards. The motion argued the public’s right to this information outweighed the Tour and PIF’s arguments that public disclosure of certain documents could cause “competitive harm.”

“At issue are allegations that a major professional sport has been illegally maintained as a monopoly. The purpose of antitrust laws are to protect the public,” the motion read. “Also at issue are claims that a foreign state [Saudi Arabia], using the immense power and wealth of a sovereign investment fund, may have tortiously interfered with a United States enterprise – and, apparently, arguments by those counterclaim defendants that they are not subject to the full jurisdiction of U.S. courts.”

Countless documents have been sealed in the case including the “Subscription and Shareholder Agreement” between LIV Golf and the PIF, which owns 93 percent of the breakaway league, and various communications and requests from both sides in the dispute.

“These are precisely the kinds of public concerns – allegations of harm to the public, affecting an international sport, implicating a sovereign state and the court’s jurisdiction – that weigh heavily in favor of disclosure,” the motion read.

Although last week’s announcement of an agreement between the Tour and PIF called for an end to the litigation, which began last August and originally included 11 players who had been suspended by the Tour for joining LIV Golf, attorneys for the Times argued that the agreement doesn’t alter the public’s right to disclosure.

“As the Ninth Circuit [U.S. Court of Appeals] has explained, settlement does not moot the public’s right of access,” the motion read, adding, “the justification may now be altered or limited by the passage of time and the parties’ recently announced [agreement].”