That would be up to the U.S. District Court for either the Central Division of California or Western District of Washington, depending on where any potential suit was filed and any choice of law provision in the contract. In short, legally speaking, this could become a complete mess.
Oh I'm agree there will be a nasty lawsuit, I'm just not sure it'll go anywhere. There already is a precedent for this. The Minnesota Timberwolves were to be sold and moved to New Orleans in 1994. The NBA Relocation Committee voted no on the deal (which is only an advisory vote) and then the BOG issued a final vote. That case went to court as well in Louisiana and the NBA won out on that one. Now to be fair, I dont know all of the mechanics of that case. The Timberwolves move is the closest thing to the current Seattle/Sacramento fight. I'll defer to you on the specific legal workings but it seems to me this would be a hard case for Hansen to win.
I heard a report that the proposal the city of Sacramento put in front of the NBA included plans to build an arena on property that has not yet been purchased, at a total cost of roughly $300 million. Supposedly, though, about a decade ago the city had put together a plan for building a similar arena for the Kings on the same property, and the total cost of that proposal was more than DOUBLE -- closer to $700 million. I have serious doubts as to whether Sacramento will be able to live up to its promises. Time will tell.
Yes, they are. And the Maloofs, like the buyers, knew that all sales need league approval and that Sac was going to fight to try and keep their team. It's not irrelevant. It's a league where you have to have permission to join. They can deny sales for damn near any reason they want. They can definitely deny a sale because they don't want a team to relocate, and that wouldn't be the first instance of it. A poster above just gave you the Sota example. I previously gave you the example of someone trying to buy the Hornets and move them, prior to the league buying them. The league has every right to say what markets they want their teams to be in. Granted, an owner could challenge them similar to Al Davis suing the NFL. I don't see why owners who aren't trying to move their teams would be concerned. And considering it's owners that have to approve the sale, they don't seem to be too concerned. The owners are the ones making the decision.
They're not the same proposal. The old Sacramento proposals were at a totally different location. And that was at a time in which property values were much much higher than they are now. (particularly in Sacramento where they took a huge hit during the housing bubble)
Theres also precedent for an owner buying a team, then moving the team without league approval and daring the league to do anything, read into Donald Sterling moving the Clippers from San Diego. Hansen has that option if he's approved to own the Kings. Now, if he's not approved to buy the team, the anti-trust case is available, and may be used as leverage into the NBA expanding the league. The league pushed Hansen & Ballmer into a corner, and since there are no teams available for 5 years minimum (Bucks, who also are not for sale), there is nothing for Hansen/Ballmer to lose by filing an anti-trust case. Remember, even if Hansen and Ballmer lose a colosal anti-trust suit, the NBA will be irreparably damaged. Stern/Silver will have to reveal information the league has been hiding for years, possibly even information they don't want to be revealed relating to the removal of the Sonics in 2008. The league would be under intense scrutiny, financial information, private financial records relating to every single NBA franchise would have to be revealed in court. Its a seriously damaging suit to the NBA and not even worth pursuing. But despite that, if anyone is capable of defeating the NBA in potentially one of the biggest corporate lawsuits in American history, its Ballmer and his team of lawyers. Ballmer has the financial capacity to also see a suit through. Ballmer is a heavyweight. The league was encouraging him to step into the game to bring basketball back to Seattle and then turns around and spits in his face, after him and his investors dropped $100 million to bring basketball back. Microsoft is a major sponsor for the NBA as well. The NBA needs to resolve the Seattle issue soon because the door probably will shut for good. If a suit is filed, the league brought it entirely on themselves for burning bridges not once but twice.
So playing by the NBA's rules is following their direction to build an NBA arena, dropping $100 million in sunk costs + $250 million in future costs to fund the project by Hansen/Ballmer (plus the $200 million from the city), then having the league say "sorry, maybe next time." Stern created this mess himself, Hansen/Ballmer are doing their best to bring basketball to Seattle, only the game is intentionally rigged against them. There is no blueprint to how to bring basketball back because Stern is literally making the rules up as he goes.
What rules has he made up in this case? All sales have always had to be approved by the league. All attempts to relocate a team have always had to be approved by the league.
The league, presumably through Stern, told Hansen/Ballmer what it would take to move a team to Seattle. They did it. Now it isn't enough. Now that I think about it, that could give rise to a claim for detrimental reliance. Legally, this is gonna get messy and a lot of money may be changing hands.
The league also told them that they would allow Sacremento to submit a bid to keep their team and then decide.
Depends entirely on what they knew... if they knew that it was subject to an approval process that was out of the hands of Stern, himself, then there's no way they can argue they relied on him. It seems next to impossible to me that they didn't know there was some risk the Kings were staying in SAC...because I knew that and I wasn't even a player in the deal. They took a risk and it didn't work out. I would need to know more of the facts..but from what I know so far, I don't think there's much of a case here at all. These are all really big boys with sophisticated business acumen and attorneys.
I don't really think there is a detrimental reliance case. Intentional interference with contract or an antitrust case...I think that is a different story entirely. I don't believe for one second that the parties weren't creating actionable damages when they agreed to the deposit. I think there is a substantial chance that this thing lands in a courtroom.
What I'm reading is deliberately price fixing a franchise (the possible forced sale of a team to Sacramento group going against the market value of the Seattle group) is an absolute violation of the Sherman Act. Stern is engaging in price fixing here. Word in the lawyer community around the country right now (NY, Chicago, Seattle, etc) is that Ballmer is on a warpath right now, retaining several top law firms in the country specializing in anti trust to go absolutely nuclear on the NBA if the sale is denied. There is no legal way for Stern to deny the sale and then force the Maloofs to sell to Sacramento group. The language couldn't be any clearer in the Sherman Act. An anti-trust suit against the NBA could be devastating, engaging in price fixing could even spell the breakup of NBA in its current organization. You can't violate US law. Stern is an idiot for thinking he could pull this off.
Help me with the intentional interference deal...who had the contract? who was that contract with? and who interfered? Honestly, I don't know enough about the details behind all this. Haven't followed it very closely. The commercial litigation angle is more interesting to me than the story.
IIRC, sports leagues are treated differently in anti-trust suits. They are allowed to, for example, have player drafts and salary scales because there is a interest in competitive balance. It would also make sense for them to be allowed to determine the number of teams, who owns them and their location-- kind of bad for a league if people can just buy teams in it and move them to whatever city that they want. There probably are legal arguments that the Seattle group can in favor of breaking the NBA "trust" but it seems things like whether a sports league should enjoy certain exemptions to anti-trust law are questions of law that may well get answered fairly quickly without getting into discovery. We'll see how it turns out. No doubt that the NBA will analyze all of the legal risks before deciding.
