NBC News: Donald Sterling files $1 billion antitrust lawsuit against NBA
Kurt Helin
May 30, 2014, 5:15 PM EDT
It was not if, it was when. And when was Friday afternoon.
NBC News has learned Donald Sterling has filed an anti-trust and other violations seeking $1 billion plus treble damages.
The first goal of this lawsuit is to block the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Donald Sterling and his wife Shelly each owned half of the team through the Sterling Family Trust (he was the recognized primary owner by the league) but she had him declared mentally incapacitated, making her the sole trustee and setting up the sale. His attorneys have vehemently denied that.
Sterling has been expected from the start to fight the forced sale of this team by the league. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver came out in the wake of a recording made public by TMZ (and later a Donald Sterling interview on CNN) and banned Donald Sterling for life, fined him $2.5 million and started the procedure to strip him of ownership. The league’s path to do that would be through the vote of the other owners following a hearing on the case, all of which is set for June 3.
Shelly Sterling tried to avoid that by setting up the sale with Ballmer. To do that she had to have Donald declared mentally incapacitated. Both sides here confirm that Donald met with neurologists in the last month who tested him — the results of those tests are the question.
TMZ is reporting Sterling is battling Alzheimers disease.
Sterling’s attorney told Rachel Nichols of CNN that is a vast overstatement of what was found. This is from her twitter account.
Sterling always says he doesn’t want to start a fight as he starts one. Not reading much into that.
All of this — Sterling’s mental capacity, the legality of the sale to Ballmer, whether the league can remove Sterling as owner and sell the team themselves if this first sale falls apart — is all going to be decided by the courts now.
As we always expected.
Kurt Helin
May 30, 2014, 5:15 PM EDT
It was not if, it was when. And when was Friday afternoon.
NBC News has learned Donald Sterling has filed an anti-trust and other violations seeking $1 billion plus treble damages.
The first goal of this lawsuit is to block the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Donald Sterling and his wife Shelly each owned half of the team through the Sterling Family Trust (he was the recognized primary owner by the league) but she had him declared mentally incapacitated, making her the sole trustee and setting up the sale. His attorneys have vehemently denied that.
Sterling has been expected from the start to fight the forced sale of this team by the league. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver came out in the wake of a recording made public by TMZ (and later a Donald Sterling interview on CNN) and banned Donald Sterling for life, fined him $2.5 million and started the procedure to strip him of ownership. The league’s path to do that would be through the vote of the other owners following a hearing on the case, all of which is set for June 3.
Shelly Sterling tried to avoid that by setting up the sale with Ballmer. To do that she had to have Donald declared mentally incapacitated. Both sides here confirm that Donald met with neurologists in the last month who tested him — the results of those tests are the question.
TMZ is reporting Sterling is battling Alzheimers disease.
Sterling’s attorney told Rachel Nichols of CNN that is a vast overstatement of what was found. This is from her twitter account.
Sterling always says he doesn’t want to start a fight as he starts one. Not reading much into that.
All of this — Sterling’s mental capacity, the legality of the sale to Ballmer, whether the league can remove Sterling as owner and sell the team themselves if this first sale falls apart — is all going to be decided by the courts now.
As we always expected.
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